What did the Romans ever teach us?

Will plans for food-label-style tagging of degrees threaten the arts and humanities?
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Learning from the Greeks: can studying the classics teach us anything?
Learning from the Greeks: can studying the classics teach us anything? Photograph: Corbis

Last week Lord Mandelson called for a new food-labelling-style system in which degrees would be tagged with drop-out rates, earnings potential and employment success, and called on employers to fund courses in return for helping to design them. How would, say, classics or philosophy fare in such a framework? Are liberal arts degrees at risk in a world that could place more value on vocational courses such as footwear design or spa management?

Back in 2003, the then education secretary, Charles Clarke, found himself under attack when he argued against "a medieval concept of the university as a community of scholars unfettered by difficulties and problems of wider society". On funding such a concept, he said: "We might do it at, say, a level of a hundredth of what we do now and have one university of medieval seekers after truth that we thought were very good to support as an adornment to our society." Could that vision come true?

Mandelson's own degree, from Oxford, is in philosophy, politics and economics, a subject that evolved as a more vocationally useful alternative to classics for students keen to build a career in the civil service. We asked students, academics and graduates whether classicists are useful to the UK.

Professor Richard Elliott, dean of the school of management, Bath University

"Will tagging change student choices? I think students assume that if they go to a top place, they'll get a good degree. So I'm not convinced tagging will make much difference.

I'm not a great fan of the word 'vocational' in terms of the degrees we offer, because to be honest, we don't train anyone to do anything – essentially we train people to think.

As to whether students are particularly interested in what they'll earn after graduating, I think that's probably specific to business schools.

In terms of the economic crisis, we should definitely be teaching more history [within business and management courses] so that we can look at this kind of crisis in context and learn from it. From my experience, academics are making every effort to keep the curriculum wider than just some sort of basically functional learning, and that's what society needs."

Jonathan Carpenini, 21, is studying classics at Royal Holloway, London University

"I wouldn't have gone for a vocational degree because I never thought of uni as a direct route to getting a job. I chose classics for the love of the subject.

We learn about the growth of ancient cities, for instance, and we do find links in many of the things we study. It has shown me how institutions start to be established within cultures, and the way that politics in Turkey and the Middle East have evolved. Is a classics degree an indulgence? Actually, I think it's very useful because it gets you thinking about all sorts of issues, gives you a wide spread of knowledge and understanding, and it has trained me to be highly analytical. What I plan to do for a living is completely unconnected – I've just applied to join the police."

Gillian Evans, emeritus professor of medieval theology and intellectual history, Cambridge University

"The 'salary expectation' part of tagging degrees leads to a question about students' motivation in going to university: the assumption is that no one will put in the time unless there is a financial reward. But, in my experience, most students don't start off by thinking about the job. And if you get sufficiently interested in something, the 'how will I ever earn my living at this' question tends to come much later on.

Meanwhile, it's critical for a population to have a grasp of things such as the history of how civil liberties developed and why they matter. That kind of cultural knowledge has a value beyond the number on a salary-slip.

One of the problems with employer-led course design in partnership with a nearby university is that if you train for a job in your local chocolate factory, that's not going to get you a job in Hong Kong. You're stuck. The value of courses like the one I teach is that it gives you powers of critical thought, which it ought to be possible to use in any future job. The essence of being very able is that you have a mind that can move around."

Adam Stones, 31, graduated in Greek and Roman studies from Birmingham University, and now works as a PR manager

"I wasn't 100% sure about going down a particular career path, so I chose my degree because I wanted to keep lots of options open. I'm convinced that the need to analyse and assess materials and develop lines of argument helped me to develop a maturity in my thinking processes, and also a certain rigour in the way I go about things. I also learned that creativity isn't something that just happens on a whim, it's something that can only really fly if you bring a bit of discipline to the process of tapping into it.

My degree nurtured a love of communication in all its aspects as I observed how people and cultures intermingled throughout history. The link between my studies and my subsequent employment is very real – I've since worked as a journalist, before moving into building and communicating brands – and would challenge any assertion that by doing a more seemingly 'impractical' or non-vocational degree you can't earn a comfortable salary."

Dr Todd Huffman, director of graduate studies for particle physics, Oxford University

"It is wholly wrong for a government to decide which degrees are more or less worthy than others. What if some government entity decided to eliminate journalism, for instance, by removing all funding for such degrees because it was not deemed 'useful' to the current government? People choose their courses and professions for many reasons, and it is not up to anyone other than the student to decide their ultimate 'value'.

Improving the amount of information available to a student around the statistics of a given degree is a good thing if it is done without further bureaucracy. The proposals I have seen force more bureaucracy on universities to present information that is already collected by other government agencies. Why does Lord Mandelson think that anyone else can afford this burden in today's climate, if the government feels it cannot? This ends up being yet another league table, where universities are competing for employment rates or salary figures.

The society that cannot 'afford' classics, if there are enough young people who wish to study classics, is a soul-destroying place. Living in such a world would be like living inside a bowl of gruel."

Nick Aldridge, 30, graduated from Cambridge with a degree in philosophy. He is now chief executive of eBay's charity partner, MissionFish UK

"The only thing I ever wanted to study was pure philosophy and I found my degree hugely rewarding. The thing about studying philosophy is that it presents you with lots of obscure and impenetrable texts, which you have to work hard to understand. Doing that for three years means you're not intimidated by difficult concepts or problems. The only way you'll push through the tough bits to develop that critical thinking ability is by being motivated, which you only are if you're interested in your subject.

Now I lead a charity delivering all the fundraising technology for eBay; it's technically, legally and financially complex and challenging, so my analytical skills continue to be highly relevant.

I think universities should focus on what they've always been good at: teaching people how to think by giving them really stretching, challenging content, rather than a degree just being a basic apprenticeship."

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