A music (arts) graduate gets to live the life of a musician and can earn a decent salary as well. An accountancy graduate can earn more money but spends their working life as a bean-counter. How miserable does that sound? And how many accountants are employed by super rich musicians who export their products all around the world?

Bigdoggy, Prudhoe, England

I have a degree from one of the top 5 universities in this country and strongly believe that it was a waste of time. I worked all through university pulling pints in order to pay for the tuition and was until recently relatively unemployable. Most of my school friends who went straight out to work are earning well over what I am and are on the ladder to a successful career, with hindsight maybe I should have done the same thing. After a year spent working as a temp I finally managed to scrape a job as an IT trainer, currently I am retraining to be a quantity surveyor as at least there are jobs available. Students have to be aware that due to the number of graduates emerging into the job market substantial earnings are not available to everyone.

C Robertson, edinburgh , Midlothian

A lot of people seem to forget that taxpayers fund universities. It's all very well students (on this page) saying but university is not about the money, its about the people you meet, the experience, the quality of life, etc and then saying that they don't earn more than someone who didn't go to university.

As a taxpayer, I want you to do extremely well and to earn heaps more than someone who didn't go to university as you have much more to pay back into the system! Or maybe you think that your 3 or 4 years spent getting your degree, whilst others got jobs, lends you some sort of exempt from contributing status?

Kim, london, england

A population where one in two people have a degree can only serve to undermine the value of a degree. When I was a kid a degree stood for something, it was a real achievement that only the brightest would achieve through a lot of hard work. It was a distinguishing qualification which marked the person out as above the ordinary. Nowadays a degree merely shows that person is fairly average. The population is not suddenly more capable or more intelligent, which leaves the only other conclusion: degrees in general have become easier to achieve. Sure, the traditional degrees like medicine, the sciences, and engineering are still tough but with the possible exception of medicine the numbers taking these courses are falling and the entrance requirements are being lowered by financially-motivated universities trying to keep the course alive, dumbing down the 'difficult' degrees because students are attracted to easier subjects which they believe offer similar earning potential.

Jon, Tyneside,

For some people (not accountants, obviously), a degree is about studying a subject you love, to be able to do a job you love.

What would you prefer: 25k a year, flexible working hours, doing a job you love, or 100k a year, working from 7am into the wee hours, with colleagues you want to strangle?

starling, Lancaster,

Jeasus Christ, Nicholas Iles, Oswestry, Shropshire, are you sure you have been to UNIVERCITY, its "Horses for Courses", not "Horses for Coarses" It makes me mad, the young peple today who have no idea how to spell, walking around touting their degree, they're as thick as mince

Jock, Dundee, Scotland

Surely this comes as no surprise. Up to a couple of decades ago 'A ' levels were taken by a comparative elite of students and university education by an even smaller elite. Polytechnics took (usually) less academic students and provided a more practical higher education. Since then, polys have become unis along with some HE colleges and total HE student numbers have expanded dramatically. Employers still try to distinguish the best from the rest, but HE itself insists on continuing the public pretence that all degree subjects from all institutions are of the same quality. They clearly aren't, and a bit more honesty is needed. This doesn't mean that the personal value to an individual student of the education in question isn't worth the fees, but if they expect those fees and their investment of time to give a positive financial return then they must discriminate. After all, no one would try to argue that all shares in all companies will give the same return.

Clive, Chichester, UK

I have no problem with Sioban Rooney's sentiments, as long as she then does not go around complaining that she can't find a decent job inspite of having a degree, and the stupid statistics don't get branded about all these graduates who haven't got graduate level jobs!

As for Terry Duncalfe, is he implying that it is good for the country to encourage students to study subjects that "broaden the mind" and never mind the economic needs of the country! If anything, he is suggesting that anyone who dares study anything that would help the country economically and helps the person get a good job should be penalised financially! And is he implying that the students who study the higher value subjects don't do it for their interest in the subject? We should be encouraging them as well.
I wonder what we would do if majority of the students ended up studying American Studies, Sociology, Social sciences, Media Studies......
I have more sympathy with David Laws' views...horses for courses..

Kuldip A, Hartford, Cheshire

I'm not sure that the survey takes into account the fact that some jobs where you need a degree are simply badly paid. Employers still value people who have a degree, you just need to make sure it's a good one.

I think the government has made an error of judgement in encouraging so many people to go to university. This upholds the misplaced assumption that all intelligence can only be measured through academic qualifications, rather than vocational courses and other types of training. Earlier this week, there was an article in the Times about the lack of craftsmen and reduced opportunities for apprenticeships.

The government's academic snobbery and shortsightedness has meant that people are discouraged from following their true skills. We are not and cannot be a nation of white collar middle class professionals, in spite of what this Labour government has tried to do over the last 10 years.

Frances Roberson, Croydon, UK

The suggestion that degrees be valued according to earnings potential is truly appalling, if not surprising, in a society where the making of money is now considered the highest form of human achievement. If employers want graduates to be ready to function in their company, perhaps they should pay for and organise the job-training themselves (which is what this view of higher education amounts to). Let universities get on with the task of education and transmission of culture and science. I am not surprised that this research comes out of the Institute of Education. I suppose one can't expect students to do themselves out of a decent -paying job by getting a degree in something "useless" like French literature, but the conclusions of this research will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if they are not challenged intellectually rather than just economically.

Keith Busby, Milwaukee, WI, USA,

French and other language degrees open the door to lucrative postings on the Continent where, for companies looking to do business, lobby or just survive, native English speakers are a prized commodity.

Rob, Paris, France

After 20 years in IT and not being able to break into Management roles for the lack of a degree, I went to Uni full time to get a BA (Hons) in Business Studies. Now I can't get a job because I am "no longer current" for IT jobs because of the break and have "no experience outside IT" for other jobs.

Having the Government goal of 50% of the workforce being degreed devalues the fact you have a University education so the finding of this research is hardly surprising. Why should employers pay more when there is a glut of people with degrees?

George Brink, Hinckley, Leics, England

What bothers me about a degree these days is that as long as you get a 2:1 you're likely to get a career in whatever you like regardless of the subject. Take accountancy for example, you can study anything as long as you get a 2:1 - so you're accountant might have studied zoology (yes, it's true, I work for an accountants and they hired someone as a trainee who had a 2:1 in zoology)

It's a disgrace that you're degree subject means barely nothing. I have a degree in maths but it means nothing as I still can't get onto an accounting trainee course despite the fact it's maths - I have to work as the administrator. So my 4 years at uni and my want to be an accountant actually means nothing these days.

You may think I'm bitter and you'll be right - it turns out I could've done some easy "ology" degree and got to where I wanted to be much easier than studying the required degree for accountancy.

Louisa, London,

'Quality & sense of achievement (re Jo Newman, Stevenage)? Roughly translated as bumming it for a few years, getting drunk & having 'you know what' with random strangers!!'

Wow. I feel very sorry for you, Charlie from Norwich, if that has been your experience of university life, direct or indirect. I go to university because I want to LEARN, not so I can get hammered and sleep with any old person who came along. I will have a sense of achievement on completion of my degree; clearly this is something which has eluded you. Never mind. Be happy in your prejudice.

Clare, Manchester,

I disagree with this. I did a English Literature degree at University and I breezed into a great graduate job in the City. The caliber of the candidate is more important than the degree that they choose. I would go as far as to say that many professions would prefer rounded individuals, with the capacity to learn and develop, over people who have already been through 3-4 years of a specialist degree. You are less likely to burn out and enter the workplace without any pre-conceived ideas about how things should work. Unless you want to enter a profession that requires a specialist degree (Medicine etc) I think you’re better suited to pursuing something that interests you. Degrees are more about learning how to learn than stuffing any useful content in your head. The first thing they do when you get hired is to try to batter out everything you just spent three years trying to learn!

Alistair, London, England

The beauty of the British system is that the choice of degree subject does not necessarily radically limit choice of future employment as it often does in many other European countries, for example, France or Switzerland. As such it is pleasingly possible to choose a field of study based on genuine interest and passion and yet still consider a wide variety of career paths afterwards, even those that are well paid!

Rolf, Basel, Switzerland

A degree in arts or humanities is only worthless if seen solely from a financial persective. In the middle of a philosophy course I would say that even if afterwards I earn no more than someone who did not go to university I have gained immeasurably from studying in depth a subject that is interesting and intellectually demanding. There is more to learning and education than how much you can get from it.

Harry, edinburgh,

Universities at one point were the home of academic excellence, quite obviously this is no longer the case. The new wave of courses with ever decreasing intellectual value has led to a surplus of people attending university. Courses such as retail management (for which marks are awarded merely for turning up), from my view don't seem to hold any value; why could the same lessons not be taught on a vocational basis?

The vast numbers of degrees being awarded to people in all honesty wouldn't exactly be considered as academically excellent, will of course dilute the value of those real degrees earned by people who worked for them. Furthermore, less soft degrees means less students, which means those who deserve to be there would have access to greater funding.

Tom, The City, London,

This is precisely the kind of research that fails to consider the benefit of knowledge beyond what is economically profitable. Have experts forgotten that we work to live rather than the reverse?

My degree in English may not have made me rich, but it certainly provides me with better dinner party conversation than an accountant.

Siobhan Rooney, London,

Another piece of research from the price of everything & the value of nothing brigade. No wonder that the ‘majority think Britain is in morale decline’. Wouldn’t it be nice to study for a degree for the interest in the subject, now thanks to Thatcher and all who have come after her everything in life has to be boiled down to how much it is going to earn (the most misused word in the English language) you.
We shouldn’t value a degree only in economic terms, we all benefit from an educated workforce. Our society appears to want less criticism preferring workers to study subjects that will fill its narrow vocational functionalist view.
The only fair way of funding HE is through taxation. If students chose subjects that reward them financially, those deriving the most ‘benefit’ will pay the most. This will also have the benefit of capturing those who gained financially before the expansion of education, including the policymakers who want to control access to the privilege they enjoyed.

Terry Duncalfe, Aylesbury, UK

Studying the arts does not make you a member of a generation of graduates useless for anything of substance.' Unfortunately what it does do it demonstrate that it is significantly harder to earn high wages if your skills do not lend themselves to making someone else rich quickly but rather benefit everyone more abstractly.

Steinbeck said it best - It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, aquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and selfinterest are the traits of sucess. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.

Ged, Oxford,

If - as seems to be the government's target - 50% of young people should have a degree then it means - at best - that the average young person would have a degree. Whatever the arguments about falling standards, degrees are being devalued simply by - as per the government's target - becoming the average. If a degree is regarded as an indicator of ability (rather than effort) then this target neatly includes those of average ability. With access once again determined by money then achieving the 50% target will ensure that a below average ability candidate will have a degree of sorts.

Education is not mass production - it is in part a grading process, grading a raw material. More must mean worse provided there is already free access. More must mean worse.

Bob T, London, UK

Quality & sense of achievement (re Jo Newman, Stevenage)? Roughly translated as bumming it for a few years, getting drunk & having 'you know what' with random strangers!!

Charlie, Norwich, England

When is the government going to accept that setting a figure (50%) as the amount of gradutes is simply ignoring the reality of the world. It creates a false image that more and more young people will find better paid jobs simply because of their education. Rubbish. The market place decides what jobs are available, and what their value is. We need young people to be given REALISTIC assessments of their abilities and prospects, and not have their heads filled with gradiose ideas that they can all be media gurus or company directors. People are different, fact. We need tradesmen; we need nurses who haven't spent their training theorising and writing and have actually spent it learning about the practical aspects of caring for patients; we must understand that some people may actually be limited in what they can achieve and they should not be belittled for being so. Help them understand their role in society - and we may fill more of the jobs being willingly taken by foriengers.

David Laws, Brussels, Belgium

Putting up tuition fees is NOT the answer here! This will simply prevent perfectly able and gifted students from earning their desired degree because they may not be able to afford the fees. Raising entrance requirements for "higher valued" degrees would mean that able and employable students come through university and employers can be more confident in the value of degrees. Students who don't make the entrance requirements will have to select a different course. It's not fair to the most hard working and able students that their degrees are being watered down by rediculous government policy and greed from higher education institutions.

RT, Bristol,

The story assumes that universities should reward students with the prospect of higher earnings merely because they now have to invest in their education. But there are other types of rewards like intellectual enhancement that can't be quantified by these bland economic statistics.

Although high-paying careers as a physician or an accountant can be fulfilling, so can careers as a technical author or gallery curator. Students shouldn't be fooled into thinking that being able to write a prescription will be a prescription for happiness.

Steven Minuk, Oxford, UK

Reader wrote=This is exactly the sort of research that should help to determine educational policy

From experience in Univercity,if a course is not taken up by the minimum number of pupils needed to make it pay,,it is cancelled

As an ex IT university student, It is noticable the students in a class who are there to learn to then make a high earning career, and it was obvious the people who are there just to have a job and settle down and have a family.

Horse for coarses as they say

Nicholas Iles, Oswestry, Shropshire

"Recent male graduates in arts and humanities are earning no more than those who left education after A levels, a study from the Institute of Education has found."

I really can't understand how this is possible. I mean if somebody wanted to be a teacher of French, or English in a school, he/she would need a degree. Just having an a-level would not be sufficient.

I somebody wanted to be a tutor for an established company, which pays quite pay well, they would also need a degree in that subject. Just having an A-level would not be enough.

I really cant understand this statement at all

Amer Safir, London, England

The value of education is not always measurable in cash. A male graduate in English, or history, or classics, may not earn more than someone who started working after A levels, but he will be a different person and one who can be assumed to have a certain level of sophistication in his thinking. This is an ever-rarer commodity and not to be dismissed, even if it isn't valued financially. Money isn't everything but try convincing most people of that nowadays.

Jenny Jonas, Glasgow,

When I did my degree in Physics in 1967-1970 I was motivated purely by the desire to learn more about the subject.
Although my career and earning prospects were greatly enhanced by gaining my degree it would be a shame if this became the major justification for future students.

Malcolm Williamson, Welwyn Garden City, UK

Let's not forget about the quality and sense of achievement a university education brings to someones life. Surely it is not just about the money.

jo newman, stevenage,

For me going to university wasn't just about getting a good degree in order to go on and get a high paying job, it was also about the life changing experiences, meeting new people etc. I wouldn't care if I was only earning the same as would if I'd gone straight into work after A-levels, my time at university was amazing and I'd gladly pay double for the privelege.

Kevin, Bristol,

If you think that a "lightweight" degree is going to improve your lifetime earnings then you're probably too dim to be going to university.

Alexandra, Cologne,

So someone has noticed! It should have been obvious from day 1 that we will soon have (if we haven't already) a generation of graduates useless for anything of substance.

Terry Dell, Weybridge, UK

I do not believe that is makes a massive difference what degree you have. I studied History at Bristol and came out with an average 2:1 but i am confident i will still be able to get a good job which will more than repay my fees. It is not necessariy what degree you take and come out with, but more what experience you gain from university and what you did with your time there. It is what you take from your experience at uni that gives you the edge over other people in the job market.

joe whittle, Bristol,

Low interest rates??? 4.8% flat interest is higher than wage inflation and coupled with the low 9% repayment on salaries over £15k means for graduates earning less than £25,600 their student loans will actually RISE once they are working, not get repaid. Bill Rammell doesn't know what he is talking about. This is a tax on education and learning from Gordon Brown.

John Smith, Manchester, UK

The muddled thinking here is incredible. It is suggested that those wishing to study subjects in demand in the economy should pay more than those, like me, who wish to study simply for their own enjoyment and development. This is madness! It will encourage more people to study 'cheap' subjects at the tax payers expense. Few students choose their course based upon the possible post-graduation monetary gain from it.

MDHinton, Sieradz, Poland

An asinine piece of research that manages to miss a central point - that people graduating with arts & humanities often earn less because they CHOOSE jobs that pay less. If you want to be a banker after studying history or a lawyer after reading English then the door is open for you to do so: however many of those graduates choose less well-paid (and perhaps more rewarding) careers precisely because they were less money-motivated in the first place.

As far as employability goes, I would be far more likely to consider taking on a philosophy graduate than a business studies or accountancy student - if someone has managed to understand and write perceptively about Descartes and Aquinas then I have confidence they will quickly learn how to maintain a website or market a product.

Laurence Buss, Oxford,

It's not just the degree. It's the university where you got that degree as well.

C. Morland, Bath,

This is exactly the sort of research that should help to determine educational policy.

Education for too long has been an ideological football kicked around at the whim of politicians.

We make a big mistake when we allow something so important to be determined by debate that takes place in a vacuum without facts.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/US