The Student Room Group

Lord Browne, don't you think abandoning the Arts & Humanities is short sighted?

I mean, there are centuries of rich human thought, the value of which cannot be adequately represented in a 4 year parliamentary budget.

An educated, well spoken person, one with class and conciousness is well versed or at least somewhat knowledgeable about the works of great minds in the past. Say Byron, or Gainsborough or Hobbes.

Studying the arts/humanities not only enriches the minds of the individual, but society as a whole becomes more civilised and a much more reasonable place to be.

Or is this all some big conspiracy to make sure that in the future only the rich will have enough cash to stump up front for an arts/humanities degree, broaden their minds, then laugh pitifully at the plebeians wallowing in their daily toil and squalor without conciousness or understanding of their condition for their masters? i.e the rich who got a well rounded education.

The poor will be put off and the departments left and right will be downsizing or closing due to not enough student numbers to maintain an economy of scale.
(edited 13 years ago)

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Reply 1
Good arts pay for themselves, I see no reason to fund things that cannot exist without financial help.
Reply 2
We're not. If students choose to study these courses, then the Government will provide the up-front funding for it. If it is strategically important, then it will receive additional funding.
Reply 3
It's the government that are making £2 billion cuts to higher education funding and most probably arts and humanities, not Lord Browne
Reply 4
And what constitutes 'strategically important'?? Your replies seem so general!!! One could argue that most arts and humanities aren't.. Philosophy, History, Theology, English Language, English Literature.. I'm not sure how these would be considered 'strategically important'? That isn't to say they aren't worth studying because in my (quite biased) opinion, they obviously are.
(edited 13 years ago)
Lord Browne
We're not. If students choose to study these courses, then the Government will provide the up-front funding for it. If it is strategically important, then it will receive additional funding.


Is graduate medicine not 'strategically important' then? How do you expect these students to cope with higher fees when they are expected to pay them up-front?
Reply 6
mel0n
And what constitutes 'strategically important'?? Your replies seem so general!!! One could argue that most arts and humanities aren't.. Philosophy, History, Theology, English Language, English Literature.. I'm not sure how these would be considered 'strategically important'? That isn't to say they aren't worth studying because in my (quite biased) opinion, they obviously are.


Well done for keeping on at him.
I'm really confused about Modern Language degrees ... they're humanities but Britain needs more language graduates (according to all the statistics my French teacher keeps throwing at me :p:) Is that 'strategically' important? Please?
Reply 8
Muffinz
Well done for keeping on at him.


I know he will never reply but it's pretty frustrating, the answers and everything :sigh:
Thin about it, if cuts are coming, and you had to pick a society that had certain things but then NONE of one or two, Humanities as a whole would be low-ish on the list.
Languages may creep high, but apart from that, the main ones will be technology related.
Medicine for one will be up the top. Society as a whole NEEDS healthcare, but WANTS to know more about its history.
If you were freezing to death in a library, you WOULD burn the books.
Reply 10
mel0n
And what constitutes 'strategically important'?? Your replies seem so general!!! One could argue that most arts and humanities aren't.. Philosophy, History, Theology, English Language, English Literature.. I'm not sure how these would be considered 'strategically important'? That isn't to say they aren't worth studying because in my (quite biased) opinion, they obviously are.

In the review it says it will award extra funding for subjects that provide significant social return e.g. medicine, veterinary science, nursing etc.
Reply 11
ScrubZ
In the review it says it will award extra funding for subjects that provide significant social return e.g. medicine, veterinary science, nursing etc.


But this thread is about the arts and humanities, which medicine, veterinary science and nursing aren't! His answer in regards to the arts and humanities was that those strategically important or whatever will receive funding, which sort of skates around the edge of what will actually happen to them and which exactly are to be considered 'strategically important'
Reply 12
Lord Browne
We're not. If students choose to study these courses, then the Government will provide the up-front funding for it. If it is strategically important, then it will receive additional funding.

That's a very good answer and you are a clever man to spin it so succinctly.

Unfortunately the reality is that whole point of increased tuition fees is to push the burden of funding of various courses and departments solely onto the students and not the government.

What you are saying is that if any students want to study the art/humanities, the government will loan them the tuition fee money, to fund the course. But if a student want to study "strategically important" subjects , there would be "additional" funding from the government. This additional funding could either be extra loans to the student for an even higher tuition fee, or it could be direct payments from the govt to the department's courses.

If what you mean by additional funding is higher tuition fees for strategically important courses via the government giving bigger loans to students to make them carry more debt; then really you're abandoning higher education across the board.

And if what you mean by additional funding is extra direct payments from the govt to the departments, well I didn't really need to be reminded that taking funding from both Arts/Humanities and the "strategically important" then giving money back only to the latter is equivalent to just cutting and abandoning the former where (across all courses anyway) student numbers is likely to drop, the dept loses the economy of scale, cuts back or shuts due to lack of funding severly impacting the future of the Arts/Humanities in Britain. I knew that already, thanks.
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Reply 13
Overmars
Why would he be a much improved person?

And a garbage degree in philosophy which gains you the same useful knowledge as spending £30 in waterstones is not the only way of teaching you that. From my experience, I've had these intelligent discussions with scientists who tend to be far more logical and less about the bull****ing.

As a Philosophy graduate, you are exactly the type of person that I bemoan; the type that after having bought a £30 book from Waterstones proclaims themselves to be as good as a real philosopher.
(edited 13 years ago)
Arts and humanities although interesting arent tackerling the problems we face as a society so no, in the times of economic crisis they shouldnt be funded. Once we are back to a country that can afford luxury items then this can be reviewed.
The-Real-One
I mean, there are centuries of rich human thought, the value of which cannot be adequately represented in a 4 year parliamentary budget.

An educated, well spoken person, one with class and conciousness is well versed or at least somewhat knowledgeable about the works of great minds in the past. Say Byron, or Gainsborough or Hobbes.

Studying the arts/humanities not only enriches the minds of the individual, but society as a whole becomes more civilised and a much more reasonable place to be.

Or is this all some big conspiracy to make sure that in the future only the rich will have enough cash to stump up front for an arts/humanities degree, broaden their minds, then laugh pitifully at the plebeians wallowing in their daily toil and squalor without conciousness or understanding of their condition for their masters? i.e the rich who got a well rounded education.

The poor will be put off and the departments left and right will be downsizing or closing due to not enough student numbers to maintain an economy of scale.


I have one word for people who scoff at the arts and humanities:

PHILISTINES
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 16
Liquidus Zeromus
I have one word for people who scoff at the arts and humanities:

PHILISTINES


I approve. I can't stand it when people sneer at me for doing Arts subjects, and then they look down upon me for being well-read.
And what's with all this rubbishing of philosophy? Doesn't it seem absurd to be studying the subshells of an atom without having a fair idea of whether or not one exists? That's what philosophy's for, and it's utterly imperative.
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 17
Dirty Harryy
Thin about it, if cuts are coming, and you had to pick a society that had certain things but then NONE of one or two, Humanities as a whole would be low-ish on the list.
Languages may creep high, but apart from that, the main ones will be technology related.
Medicine for one will be up the top. Society as a whole NEEDS healthcare, but WANTS to know more about its history.
If you were freezing to death in a library, you WOULD burn the books.


If I was freezing to death in a hospital I WOULD burn the medical staff...
And if i was freezing to death in a library I may burn the books, but I'd at least read them first :cool:
I joke, I joke... I would NEVER burn books. :woo:
Reply 18
mel0n
But this thread is about the arts and humanities, which medicine, veterinary science and nursing aren't! His answer in regards to the arts and humanities was that those strategically important or whatever will receive funding, which sort of skates around the edge of what will actually happen to them and which exactly are to be considered 'strategically important'

Good point. From reading Lord Browne's comment, it does seem to suggest that he belives there are subjects in arts or humanities that are 'strategically important', however I don't think there is any mention of these in his review. Things like Social work, Education and Law may receive additional funding as you'd think they give significant social return, but these subjects are more social sciences instead of arts or humanities. So I think Lord Browne has misled us here, I can't see there being extra funding for things like Languages, Literary Studies or Classics.
(edited 13 years ago)
Planar
I approve. I can't stand it when people sneer at me for doing Arts subjects, and then they look down upon me for being well-read.
And what's with all this rubbishing of philosophy? Doesn't it seem absurd to be studying the subshells of an atom without having a fair idea of whether or not one exists? That's what philosophy's for, and it's utterly imperative.

Well-read? So do you understand QM? GR? SR? or even basic stuff like Black Scholes equation?

It's unclear if you mean atom in the mathematical sense or atom in the physical sense.

In either case, science has been superior in showing something exists, philosophy can never do that. All philosophy is debating something pointlessly in till a physicist settles it, case and point origin of the universe we currently see. Countless philosophical arguments, but at the end of the day physics solved it.

Don't get me started on free will debates as pretty much Conway has done more, then any philosopher to getting the anwsers is there free will.

Seriously, philosophy was once useful, then it became leftovers.

The-Real-One
As a Philosophy graduate, you are exactly the type of person that I bemoan; the type that after having bought a £30 book from Waterstones proclaims themselves to be as good as a real philosopher.

Real philosophers, the real philosophers died 200 years ago when they couldn't keep up with the pace of science, now all we have is philosophers of language.
(edited 13 years ago)

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