The British Academy Data Map showed a broad and sudden decline in career prospects for academics in the non-STEM disciplines during the 2024-25 academic year. This proposes a huge risk for the opportunities available to the next generation of academics. Academic work and careers revolving around research are often criticised and deemed to be inferior compared to more vocational degrees and jobs. Why is it that our society disregards/discards the group of people that paved the way for us and guided us through our education and careers? The growing inability of our nation to deepen its knowledge and research skills puts even more stress on the future economical risks.
Humanities and social sciences are arguably necessary to have a healthy and functioning society. In 2019, the British Academy conducted a study on graduates from HASS and their analysis indicated that they are equally unaffected by economic shocks as their STEM equivalents.
The Exeter University and College Union (EUCU) officially voted to call for industrial action during their dispute with the University over the organised staff redundancies. Back in July, the university emailed all its academic staff that it planned to make 150 staff redundant whilst putting over 500 at risk which 85% of this comprised of its HASS staff. The union declared last week that the university would no longer go forward with compulsory cuts but instead “The fight will continue to protect the university from any further cuts or redundancies”.
The concentration of redundancies targeting the HASS faculty is unfortunately not shocking. Other universities in the past have gone through with similar staff cuts; including Bristol and Edinburgh. Humanities and social science subjects are often regarded to be ‘weaker’ in relation to the future job market due to their teaching of soft skills.
According to the EUCU’s own financial model, it is implied that the financial deficit of the university will end by 2029 without mandatory redundancies. However, in August, due to the panic of being made redundant halfway through the academic year, many academic staff had already quit their jobs. The university announced later in the summer that it would not go ahead with mandatory staff cuts. It could be that the number of staff that chose to leave early was enough for the university to not go ahead with its original plans. The disproportionate organised cuts within the HASS faculties underscore how these faculties are negatively viewed and deemed not as important as STEM subjects.
In emails to students, the university attempted to justify these cuts by explaining that STEM faculties like Health and Life Sciences (HLS) and Environment, Science and Economy (ESE) previously faced similar cuts. It is important to note that the issue here is rooted in the nationwide disproportionate and continuous attacks to minimise humanities and arts faculties.
According to a report by Oxford University’s Humanities division, the social value and perception of a degree is attached to the salary obtained in the future from their graduates. They found that on average, STEM earnings appear higher than HASS earnings due to the small percentage of high-earning medicine and dentistry graduates; these findings expose the skewed logic behind attacks on HASS. Moreover, employers are actively looking to employ individuals with soft skills such as critical thinking and communication (which is the heart of humanities and social sciences). With the uprise of AI and its integration into daily life and work, it is argued that these ‘human’ skills will matter more. Humanities degrees equip individuals with the skills to combat the rise of AI due to their skills in research and critical thinking which arguably has a higher value to society than financial earnings. Additionally, the report is supportive of the humanities subjects having more small-group learning opportunities which enhance communication skills and confidence – fewer academic staff in the discipline will impact feedback and student engagement which decreases the quality of teaching.
Whilst the University of Exeter has not proceeded with the staff cuts in this instance, the reasoning for their initial plans is reflective of a wider societal trend which undermines humanities-based subjects and equates potential financial earnings with value or respectability. Perhaps now more than ever, we live in a world which needs the humanities and the insight they provide. To dismiss the value of HASS subjects, based on (often incorrect) perceptions of financial success, would be at best disappointing, if not dangerous. It should be made clear that an outdated culture of academic hierarchy has no place in UK universities. It is currently unclear what steps the University of Exeter will take in the future regarding its staff and their perceived (in)dispensability – we can only hope that any action taken will be done with an equal respect for the value and dignity of all academic disciplines.
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