Mickey Mouse Degrees?

Mickey Mouse Degrees There was a provocative little package on BBC 24 yesterday, warning that there are too many graduates chasing too few jobs; there will apparently be around 300,000 graduates this year and only about 30,000 graduate jobs. Unfortunately the package doesn’t seem to have been posted up on the BBC website. Maybe it will turn up soon, but nonetheless it is certainly food for thought for all sociology students. Check out this article in The Guardian which shows one reason why the package was newsworthy. John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, wants more vocational degree courses. Predictably the BBC dragged on Chris Woodhead, former Chief Inspector of Ofsted, to slate what he called ‘Mickey Mouse Degrees’. Woodhead says there are too many bad degree courses, and students are simply taking on a lot of debt to do courses which won’t guarantee them a job and which employers do not value.

Time to apply some sociological skills. Which perspective best explains the expansion of higher education in the UK over the last few years? Is it the Marxist or the Functionalist account? For a Weberian take on the ‘Mickey Mouse’ charge, see below.

What would sociologists say about the ‘Mickey Mouse’ charge? Inevitably, it depends which sociologist you ask. But you could do worse than draw on Max Weber. Weber’s theoretical vision would suggest that higher education is a market place, but markets are structured by class, status and ‘party’. Markets are not simply about value - judgments about value are inevitably social as well as economic. Some degree courses and institutions will be more highly valued than others. Those institutions which are highly valued will create ‘mechanisms of closure’, which will restrict access. Restricted access will help boost status. Such institutions, and the qualifications which they award, will thus gain high status, and become sought after and so more valuable. Does this mean that they are ‘better’ institutions and award ‘better’ qualifications? Not quite; they may do, they may not. But the key thing is that they will be perceived to be better. That said, status is a real social phenomenon and real benefits, rightly or wrongly, accrue to those who can gain it. In classic Weberian style, Weber tells it like it is. What you do about it is down to your own values.