PODCAST: Graduate premium, careers, levelling up, culture wars

This week on the podcast we go through IFS’ work on the graduate premium, examine HEPI’s take on how graduate employability has changed universities, and look at Million Plus’ ideas for how to level up higher technical education. We also tackle Turning Point UK's attempt to address "left wing bias" in university teaching.

With Selena Bolingbroke, Lead for External Engagement and Strategic Development at Goldsmith’s College, London; and Adam Tickell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sussex.

Items this week:

1. Once in a lifetime: IFS data on earnings and contributions
2. A focus on graduate employability has transformed university careers services
3. Higher technical is how we level up
4. Is this a turning point in the campus culture wars?

Yes, but does it correlate?

With all this talk of returns on creative arts at the moment, we're taking a look at student numbers in the subject areas that make up that field. Many students described as studying creative arts are actually studying design, a much more vocational subject than perhaps many would have imagine. But do providers with a big design provision also have a similar strength in fine arts? Do undergraduate first degree student numbers in these two very visual subjects correlate?

And the answer is yes - R squared is 0.74, suggesting a close relationship between the two fields. The University of the Arts and the University of the Creative Arts understandably dominate the field, but there's a strong showing from everywhere from Edinburgh to Nottingham Trent, via Falmouth. And the largest provider of Fine Art courses that does not offer design courses? The University of Newcastle.

Data is from HESA, and does not include designated courses at alternative providers. Where the data doesn't exist, I've not plotted it.

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