So we really need more useless fools with sociology degrees (Coughlan) and other assorted idiots with arts degrees (various cabinet members) to working in a banking system that no longer exists?

Regards...jmcc

Learning how to research is to important but why not research something important.

If I was a parent I wouldn't pay for my child to study arts - if you like history then read up about it in your spare time, go to museums at the weekend etc. It isn't a job.

WE are paying for too many mickey mouse courses.

Unfortunately you do not lean actual research. I work in a company of 700; 600 of which are fellow researchers and none of them have a primary degree in art.

even if you were to do research in philosophy etc an art degree is not the start that will be looked for.

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I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.
Siegfried Sassoon

"Humanities" is a better term that "Arts", which is either too narrow or too broad a term, depending on context.

Humanities courses don't train participants for high-paying jobs. But can people please step away from their moralistic engineering/science grad snobbery for a moment and consider the implications of this fact for the forward-looking student? The original question was quite simple and not morally judgemental, so let's focus on that. Without government support, humanities courses would not survive, as students would find it difficult to finance their study, reducing numbers below critical mass. As the arts courses go, so do the arts departments. The next generations would lose a certain critical attitude to their culture - this enriches society in a way that GDP doesn't measure.

I rarely hear medicine or business graduates condemning the humanities, but I often heard computer scientists or engineers engage in such sniping while in university, so maybe this is a status resentment thing?

As a general claim, as opposed to one directed at certain humanities departments, that just looks straightforwardly false. If it were true, one wouldn't be able to study the humanities at, say, Harvard, right?

I think a lot of these kinds of attitudes stem from the false notion that people who study Arts degrees or the like go on to write poetry of make amateur films for the rest of their lives. In fact many people who study such subjects go on to work in high paying jobs or start successful businesses. Add to this the non-monetary benefit which society derives from teaching people to think critically and it is not difficult to justify the retention of Arts and Business courses within the government fees scheme.

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To live honestly, to hurt no one, to give every one his due.

Brian Lenihan - degree in law
Brian Cowen - degree in law
Brendan Smith - degree in politics and economics
Eamonn Ryan - degree in commerce
Willie O'Dea - degree in law
Dermot Ahern - law

As for the others, I don't really see what's wrong with a social sciences degree. What? Social workers are useless, are they?

A lot of graduates of Arts become teachers. I guess we don't need them either.

A lot more go on to work in business.

The only courses of which there are too many in this country are Media Studies/Journalism degrees.

Why do you look to Dáil Éireann as indicative of the quality of arts graduates?

Do you think it's representative of where arts graduates end up working?

As for getting into a big bunfight between graduates of different university faculties, I have to point out that a proper socio-economic evaluation of the return from study must reflect not only earnings but also factors like reproduction.

Reproduction requires finding a partner and having sex with them, and that's where engineering and science graduates run into trouble.

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Romanes eunt domus

You're right. I'm talking about Ireland, where our departments are under threat even in the status quo, and even in our specialities like Irish and Anglo-Irish literature and Irish history.