why is academia dying?
Education is great, if you’re a neoliberal you’ll believe it’s a pathway into success purely off of your individual meritocratic effort. The return on investment should be huge, right? Whether you’re a neoliberal or not, the marketisation of university institutions under late stage capitalism within the UK has strongly affected academic spheres. Universities often attempt to cover up the fact that they are a business, often stating they have intentions to only create research and empower students with their newfound knowledge. Despite their covert efforts, in my experience at least, academics have confided in their students that their institutions slowly converting into businesses have drastically impacted their personal lives. During my undergraduate degree, I had seminar leads tell me that because they’re getting visa support from their university, they are not getting paid a wage that is reflective of their labour. Additionally, the process of commodifying knowledge becomes increasingly harder to ignore when comparing home student fees in contrast to international student fees.
It’s not a secret that international students pay upwards of double what home students pay a year (£10,000 to £26,000 per annum on average according to Times Higher Education), making universities heavily reliant on marketing their institution to essentially keep their lights on. According to the UCAS End of Cycle report in 2024 students of the Chinese ethnic group have had the highest university entry rate since 2006, with 66.1% of Chinese students receiving acceptance to a university in 2024. This contrasts the figure of 29.8% White British students receiving acceptance into universities.
With a high concentration of Chinese students within UK education, it’s important to contextualise culture. Growing up with a half Chinese dad (and a last name that’s meant to be Xia), I’m very well aware of Confucianism and parents’ words being final. Asian parents are typically tiger parents and when combined with conservative mindsets innate to the culture, the question of ‘real’ degrees come into play. The discourse surrounding what is and isn’t defined as a ‘real’ degree isn’t singularly confined to asian cultures but it is definitely there. STEM subjects, law and medicine are often the careers chosen for you as an asian child. I was told I had to be a doctor growing up. I found a huge loophole in this philosophy and told my parents I’d be a doctor under a PhD in social sciences, something I was actually interested in rather than medicine, and now i’m doing a masters. Regardless, disciplines like the arts and humanities aren’t taken as seriously as they should be within asian cultures and with the main demographic of students being asian this should provide some insight as to why the demand for such subjects is not as rampant as it once was. Consequently, are less funded.
British Universities
Universities are no longer behaving covertly for their distaste towards these subjects and it is truly impacting those who study them and have graduated from humanities & arts disciplines. University of Kent & Greenwich are merging, whilst this all sounds so exciting, my seminar lead who works for Greenwich fully believes that her job is no longer secure and finding employment at my university, UCL, part time is her attempts to gain some stability. The University of Nottingham, home of my undergrad, has decided to close down its music & foreign languages subjects, alongside child and mental health nursing. What the fuck? One of my friends who is a final year student studying French was offered to speak to first year French learning students and only 2 out of 4 people in the class attended. When I asked her why the number was so little, she had told me she believes teachers in further education and secondary schools weren’t pushing the subjects as much as they should be. I don’t think this is ultimately the case though. Whilst teachers arguably are agents of interest and self-expression for students, I believe that changing attitudes towards learning has hugely impact post 18 education on account of Generative AI usage being widely accepted. Creative thinking and CRITICAL thinking are highly out of fashion, no one wants to use their brains, and why would you?
Law of Least Efforts & Generative AI
The Law of Least Efforts is our brains prioritising the least demanding chore in attempts to preserve our energy. It is an evolutionary effect that hasn't really left us and whilst we don’t hunt for our food anymore, our brain will always choose the easier thing to do. Whether it’s doomscrolling for 8 hours straight or staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything wrong that’s happened in your life instead of changing it, our brains naturally want to be lazy. Generative AI really is not helping humanity evolve out of the law of least efforts. You can create music, art and translate text, generative AI can be your personal assistant and best friend making you lazier and lazier. This is what your brain would want, why would you get a degree in languages when you can just open ChatGPT to translate texts? Why be a music artist when Xania Monet, an AI singer, is hitting Billboard charts? Why would you want to be creative and exercise your brain? You don’t really want a degree, do you? Even now, if you still want a degree or are pursuing one, there’s a high likelihood you will use AI somehow.
The Influence of Social Media
Rhetorics online, particularly right-wing ones, push people to stay uneducated to keep brains easily permeable. The narrative you don’t need a degree to be successful is constantly shoved down young peoples throats online, with the likes of Bill Gates, Charlie Kirk, Steve Jobs and Kanye West being used to showcase this. Although this is true, often times than not the likelihood of being rich without a degree is miniscule. By age 31, graduates earn 37% more than non-graduates (according to universities UK), showing how to make more money you really should be putting in that effort. I feel like TikTok and Instagram reinforce this belief that if you buy an influencers 30 day course on IB retailing for £300, you can be rich too. Do people not see through this? Ideas surrounding getting out of the rate race push people into thinking that working an office job where you’re making £65k annually is not a privilege. Attitudes surrounding work and degrees means that younger people may feel less inclined to pursue normalcy to subvert the status quo whilst simultaneously adhering to what they see online because of the success influential figures have had doing so.
Degree Apprenticeships
Participating alone in today’s economy is tough, half of the time the urge to transform into a kleptomaniac so I can get sourdough bread is so tempting I have to ignore it. That being said, classic degrees as we know it can often come across as an unjustifiable debt in the enormous pool of options readily available. Degree apprenticeships for example seem more beneficial in the long wrong; no debt, job stability upon completion, hands on experience. What’s not to love? The typical apprenticeships you think of like trade, childcare, hairdressing are being replaced with business administration and law degree apprenticeships. There was a 2.2% participation rise in 2024/2025 in comparison to 2023/2024 data according to data collected by the UK Home for Statistics. As degree apprenticeships are on the rise, alongside the benefits that come with it, means that mainstream universities get less funding. This resulting in again more cuts, specifically to integral opportunities that enrich culture and history within society.
No degree will ever be less valuable than others. This is because what you know impacts others around you, the circles and atmospheres you find yourself in, the conversations you engage with and ultimately wider society. People who are able to think critically using the tools provided for them through universities will forever be vital to develop society. Universities desperately need to reassess their finances and stop cutting jobs & courses. We all understand the importance of funding monumental research but without starting at the perceived ‘bottom’ of the hierarchy, the industry will continue to suffer based off of failure to meet demand. Do I still really want to do my phD? of course. Are people still going to university despite cuts? yes, however preventing students from doing courses they truly have passion in will have tumultuous impacts in the long run.