The annual Tory conference has whipped around in a flash. Speeches were filled with the usual anti-immigration, antiwoke, anti-welfare rhetoric that curates the party’s current image, with Kemi Badenoch at the face of it all. Once she peeled herself away from discussing stamp duty and inheritance tax, she couldn’t help diving into one of the Tories’ current obsessions: rip-off degrees.
This discourse has loomed over the Conservative Party since last year’s General Election. It begs the question: why do we always look down on the arts and humanities? This long fixation on STEM and apprenticeships pumping out money-making careerists is a common belief not just held by politicians, but society as a whole.
I am reminded of Neil Perry, a young student in Dead Poets Society. His father’s continuous pressure for him to attend medical school, despite Mr Keating’s encouragement for him to follow his dream for acting, eventually drives him to suicide. Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
This isn’t the extreme that Badenoch is advocating for. But the narrative is hauntingly familiar: those who pursue the arts are to be punished, deeming them less valuable and ‘easier’ in comparison to their scientific sisters. I have noticed a phenomenon in education.
When women start becoming the majority in a subject, people begin to regard it as ‘easier’ to study. Take the physical sciences. While more women are entering fields like biology and chemistry, physics remains male-dominated and is increasingly framed as a more prestigious degree.
That’s not even touching on how psychology has long been dismissed as a true science – a field now made up of over 80% women. Badenoch’s praise of these male-dominated disciplines only feeds into the patriarchal notion that men’s work holds value, whilst women’s contributions are yet again, sidelined. This bash on ‘low-earning’ degrees is an attempt to divert the public’s eye to the real problem: funding.
Badenoch continues to push the idea students should be punished for prioritising passion over profit
The limitations on international students’ visas have led to their decline, causing a significant cut to university income. Slashes to research, driven by the loss of EU funding, is another way the Conservatives have undermined these institutions. While Badenoch was quick to criticise the £7 billion pounds of unpaid student loans that get written off annually, she failed to mention that the 2015 Conservative government is to blame.
They replaced maintenance grants with high-interest loans that students can rarely pay off. Still, Badenoch continues to push the idea that students should be punished for prioritising passion over profit – as if valuing anything over money is a problem to be fixed. ‘...Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for’.
The famous words from Mr Keating echoes in our heads. In a time where anti-intellectualism is on the rise, creative and critical thinking are not a luxury – they’re a necessity. Yet, once again, the Conservatives turn up their noses.