I was recently forwarded an email which contained a link to Richard Branson's own personal blog. Now I'll admit, naively I didn't even realise Mr Branson had a blog! But it makes sense - he's one of our country's greatest entrepreneurs so he probably has a fair amount to say...
This latest one though was actually quite relevant to me. Titled Unaffordable, inaccessible university systems, Branson turns his attention to a topic that has received quite a lot of press over the last year or so, what with rising tuition fees and student protests. And he makes a number of very good points.
Branson notices that the cost of getting a degree is landing thousands of students worldwide in piles of debt, plunging them into bad credit ratings when they struggle to pay it off. Perhaps in England the risks of this are less than in other countries around the world, but the basic idea of the stress of owing money still remains. He makes a very good, very valid point that governments everywhere should pay attention to!
Asides from the costs of further education, the entrepreneur also mentions the lengths of degree courses. And this is the part of his argument where I may tend to disagree...
Firstly, Branson seems to be placing the blame of lengthy courses with the lecturers themselves...claiming it is merely for their 'convenience' rather than for the benefit of their students. Now in my university I don't think many, if any, of the lecturers have the power to make that decision. Most would probably even say that they could do with a few more lecture hours so that their module content isn't too tightly crammed! Often we find lectures speeding up in the last five minutes so as not to overrun. I'm only doing a regular 3 year course so I can't comment on those longer ones like architecture and medicine; the ones Branson is more likely to be focusing on. A part of me does agree with him; I personally don't see why architecture needs to be studied for six years. But then I also don't know half the things that go into an architecture degree, so without further research it would probably be unfair to comment.
Yet for degrees like medicine, I personally take great comfort in the fact that they require longer to study; I'd want my doctor to be dedicated to the health sector, dedicated to his job and well trained! For the amount of things that a doctor must need to know, I'm sure the course is a suitable length.
Despite the good and the bad points Mr Branson has made, I think there's one thing that he has actually neglected to mention or even consider.
Studying something you enjoy.
Believe it or not, some people go to university because they want to study a subject just so that they can learn more about it. Not everyone goes to university with a chosen career path in mind, and many of those students also just simply like their degree matter. The chance to spend three years, therefore, learning more about something they enjoy doesn't seem like such a bad thing. It can buy them time to find a career they want to aim for, gain some valuable life skills, live on their own for a few years, study something they enjoy and then venture out into the big, scary world of work. I think Branson would find that the longer the degree, the more specific the job prospect is at the end of it.
So there Mr Branson. Yes, I agree with you. But I also think you've neglected the one other key aspect to university study and university life: to enjoy it.