Can a ‘degree’ hold its value?

• This long read was kindly authored for HEPI by Gill Evans, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. Her article explores the evolving value of degrees in English higher education, focusing on the competence of degree-granting institutions and the implications of recent changes in degree-awarding powers.

The ‘value’ of a degree has been the subject of active recent debate, but chiefly with reference to what a degree costs a student in tuition fees and maintenance loans, and what it offers by way of employment prospects. Less has been said about the competence of the providers which grant degrees to ensure their lasting value to the graduate as a qualification. ‘I have a degree from…’ has a value depending upon the confidence which can be placed in a provider’s maintenance of its academic standards, its reputation and, increasingly, confidence in its continuing existence.

‘Degrees’ remain the highest of all the higher education qualifications and accreditations offered by English higher education providers. Any provider may offer a ‘certificate’ or ‘a diploma’ but it must have ‘degree-awarding powers’ in order to offer its own ‘degrees’. ‘Validation’ can allow it to offer only the degrees of a validating body with which it has a franchising arrangement. Much has been changing in the award of degrees. Sometimes powers now are awarded to a provider to grant degrees only for a fixed period or in specific subjects. They have proliferated in range and subject. The question is whether that affects their ‘value’.

From the inherent right to grant degrees to requiring permission

The power to permit the award of degrees began as an inherent right of the first English universities. It could be asserted by both Oxford (c.1200) and Cambridge (1208) from their very beginnings because they created themselves, as medieval trade guilds in the form of corporations (universitates). The guilds all controlled their membership and awarded their own qualifications. The ‘trade’ of Oxford and Cambridge as corporations lay in the study of the artes, the ‘liberal arts’. In both, a student ‘apprentice’ ‘graduated’ gradus by gradus, ‘degree’ by ‘degree’, to become a Bachelor then a Master of Arts.

The grant of the MA has undergone changes. In both Oxford and Cambridge, the MA is no longer awarded by examination but for a fee, on the request of a Bachelor of Arts of a few years’ standing. There and elsewhere, abandoning the straightforward ladder from student ‘apprentice’ to a single degree of Master of Arts, Masters’ degrees have diverged into numerous forms of usually one-year postgraduate degrees, which have proved attractive to international students. They are offered by many providers and in a range of subjects, though their profitableness to providers is now being questioned as numbers seeking them drop.

‘Doctorates’ came into being by a different route, in the form of advanced degrees to be studied for by a Master of Arts. A Studium at Bologna offered a ‘business’ course from 1088 in the ‘art of letter-writing’ (ars dictaminis), with heads of state, popes and bishops finding they needed ‘clerks’ for their growing correspondence. Bologna’s ‘licence to teach’ (licencia docendi) created a model for postgraduate ‘doctorates’ (often also called a postgraduate ‘Masters’ degree) once the first universitates came into being. Doctorates went beyond secretarial skills to the study of advanced subjects, first Law, but then Medicine and Divinity and later Music.

Medieval Oxford and Cambridge promptly added Doctorates to their own lists of degrees. It could take many years to complete such a doctorate, though in early modern times Doctorates of Divinity began to be awarded to newly-appointed English bishops, often without many questions asked about the level of their learning. That led in due course – and so as to compete with the ‘Doctorates of Philosophy’ being awarded in the United States – to the creation of Oxford’s DPhil and Cambridge’s PhD for young researchers (both in 1921). These were intended for young researchers. The ancient doctorates to a ‘higher’ level, designed for scholars with mature reputations and Doctorates in Science and Letters were added to those in Law, Medicine, Divinity and Music. Higher doctorates are now rarely awarded and many providers do not offer them.

When after a lapse of many centuries new English universities came into being from early in the nineteenth-century their power to award degrees was not taken for granted. It needed expressly to be given to them. A royal charter was the chosen means of doing so. King’s College London gained its royal charter in 1829, but that did not include powers for it to grant degrees. University College London sought a royal charter in 1830, at first unsuccessfully, with the right to award degrees proving controversial. (The London Medical Schools were clamouring for that right for themselves.) The result was a royal charter of 1836, which was issued afresh when Victoria became Queen, granting a new ‘University of London’ the right to award degrees. In 1839 the King’s students gained their University of London degrees at last.

A grant of degree-awarding powers became a usual feature in the charters of later publicly-funded universities as chartered universities became accepted as fit to hold such powers. For example, among those created in a cluster in the mid-twentieth century the University of Warwick (1965) was stated to be ‘both a teaching and an examining body’ with powers to ‘grant and confer’ Degrees, Diplomas, Certificates and other academic distinctions.

The scene and the expectations have changed. From 1997 other providers of higher education, including further education colleges and higher education colleges might be granted degree-awarding powers on the advice of the Quality Assurance Agency with the consent of the Privy Council. Since early in the twenty-first century Government policy has actively encouraged the creation of private ‘alternative providers’, both for-profit and not-for profit. These may or may not seek their own degree-awarding powers, with many content to concentrate on offering Higher Education Certificates and Diplomas at Levels 4 and 5.

More levels and categories of degree

Throughout these changes the continuing value of a ‘degree’ was simply assumed but its place in a hierarchy of qualifications has been defined. The QAA continues to supervise a ‘Qualifications Framework’ listing ‘higher’ qualification levels at Levels 4 and 5, with a degree at Level 6 and postgraduate degrees at levels 7 and 8. This sequence of possible ‘levels’ with the title of ‘degree’ was lengthened with the arrival of ‘Foundation Degrees’ when Delivering Skills for All (1999) conjured with a form of ‘associate degrees’ to ‘help raise the status of existing 2 year higher education programmes’ at Levels 4 and 5. ‘Foundation degrees’ were tried out in 2000 and launched in 2001, often specific to particular professions. Foundation Degree-Awarding Powers are required before a provider may offer Foundation degrees.

Nevertheless, a ‘Foundation Degree’ at level 5 does not constitute a degree, as commonly understood, but it provides a point of entry for study at Level 6, the level at which a Bachelor’s Degree is awarded. ‘Masters degrees’ follow at postgraduate Level 7, though some four-year undergraduate degrees include a Master’s level element, with undergraduate Student Loans sometimes available for those. Specific ‘Masters’ loans were introduced in 2016-17. Taught Degrees may extend to Level 8, where they become ’taught Doctorates’. ‘Research’ Degrees are offered at Level 7 or 8.

Such refinements have been made by the efforts of autonomous providers on their own initiative. Exceptionally ‘taught-only’ degree-awarding powers had been allowed to a few ‘University Colleges’, for example to Harper Adams, now a University, in 1996. In 2004 the decision was taken to allow higher education providers in England and Wales with only ‘taught’ degree-awarding powers to be granted ‘university title’. That allowed alternative providers which were not research-active to gain degree-awarding powers.

The legislation has not quite caught up. The Higher Education Research Act of 2017 gave the Office for Students the powers to permit a higher education provider to grant degrees but failed to distinguish ‘taught’ and ‘research’ degree-awarding powers (DAPS). Nevertheless, these are now awarded in practice as separate powers (TDAPs and RDAPs) with ‘taught’ automatically included in an award of ‘research’ degree-awarding powers.

Non-research-active ‘alternative’ higher education providers may be keen to gain research-degree-awarding powers by actively expanding their research activity. Leeds Trinity University had powers to award taught degrees from 2009 and became a University in 2012. It states as an ‘overarching strategic aim’ to make an application for Research Degree Awarding Powers by 2026. Its strategy, it says, is ‘focused on building a positive Research Culture’. It defines this as:

one that is impactful for people and society, sustainable and diverse, and a research environment to energise and sustain those engaged in research and supporting research at all career stages.

It promises to foster ‘synergies between research, impact, innovation, practice, knowledge exchange and taught provision nationally and internationally.

By early 2024 only one of the Office for Students’ DAP grants had included research degree-awarding powers. The exception came in 2022 the University for the Creative Arts was granted RDAP for 2022-5. This was a provider concentrating on provision in one of the areas falling into the category of ‘higher’ technical and professional qualifications and research. Formed in 2005 from a series of mergers including the Surrey Institute of Art and Design which already had TDAP, the University for the Creative Arts had gained university title in 2008. Its new grant allows it to ‘grant research awards’ including degrees for ‘a fixed term beginning on 1st September 2022 and expiring on 30th November 2025’.

UCA explains that these are ‘creative research degrees’. It gives a list of disciplines, including Animation; Architecture; Business for the Creative Industries; Computer Arts and Visual Effects; Crafts; Fashion; Film, Television and Media; Fine Art and Digital Art; Games and Creative Technology; Graphic Design and Illustration; Interior, Product and Spatial Design; Music; Performing Arts; Photography; Visual Communications; The history and theory of art, design, architecture, visual culture and material culture. These are studied within ‘Centres’ or ‘Clusters’ of related disciplines. UCA also has a Doctoral College, ‘focused on practice-based research projects’, which are to include ‘an original written thesis’, with ‘practice-based candidates’ required to ‘produce accompanying creative work’.

The Office for Students’ ‘Regulatory Framework’ allows providers which have been offering higher education for more than three years to apply for ‘full degree awarding powers’. If for fewer than three years, any DAP granted may initially be time-limited, probationary and subject to review. Such reviews are noted in the OfS’s published list of ‘Orders’ where the initial temporary award of DAPs may be extended but perhaps only for a further fixed period. Where a provider’s previously-awarded Privy Council DAPs have expired the OfS may make a fresh time-limited award. It did so for Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education which had become the TEC Partnership. A time limit may be removed or ‘taught’ DAP added to Foundation DAP. There seems to have been no serious examination of the effect on the value of degrees of imposing time limits on the award of the powers to award them. A graduate may be left with a ‘degree from’ a provider which can no longer award degrees.

The experiment of Degree Apprenticeships

‘Alternative’ higher education provision may now involve a variety of partnerships and collaborations with bodies which are not necessarily themselves involved in higher education and do not themselves have degree-awarding powers. Governments have encouraged such arrangements. These may have uncertain futures, particularly those offering the Degree Apprenticeships which were introduced in 2015. First and foremost a Degree Apprenticeship is a job. The employer designs the programme of study and chooses the ‘training provider’ to deliver it.

It seems that the provider alone can grant a Degree Apprenticeship as a qualification, since the employer lacks DAP, and it is therefore dependent on the ‘training’ being ‘delivered’ by a provider with the necessary powers. However, this division may be growing less clear. Listed among providers granted taught DAP by the Office for Students is the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology (2021). This puts its students on a path to employment with it. Its probationary three years of DAP expire and will need to be renewed in Spring 2024 when its ‘employer-sponsored’ MEng degree will be subject to confirmation.

Multiverse was granted DAP in 2022, giving it ‘the ability to issue Multiverse Degrees – and greatly expand our offering as a truly outstanding alternative to university’. It describes itself as ‘breaking’ the ‘barrier between education and employment’. It explains that it was ‘the first apprenticeship provider to be awarded these powers’. It claims that ‘the Multiverse experience already rivals that of a university’ but its ‘Applied Degree’ would mean that ‘degree apprentices can achieve exactly the same qualifications with meaningful work experience and without debt’. It was to be ‘taught and tested through personalised coaching and immediate application in the workplace’, dismissing ‘theoretical lectures and outdated exams’.

Robert Halfon, then Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education described Degree Apprenticeships as ‘a crucial rung on the ladder of opportunity and an important instrument of social justice’. Nevertheless, Degree Apprenticeships have not proved popular. The Office for Students opened a funding competition in September 2023 with the stated purpose of increasing ‘capacity and capability among English higher education providers to ‘deliver high-quality degree apprenticeships provision that meet skills needs now and in the future’. It found that of the 343 Approved (fee cap) providers on the OfS Register, only 99 were offering ‘degree apprenticeships’, with a mixed record in the numbers of apprentices actually ‘starting’ them. The majority of ‘starts’ were in only 24 providers, representing an acknowledged ‘market failure’. The employer-led Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education had so far approved 105 Level 6 degree apprenticeship standards, not all of which yet had takers.

The Outcome of the OfS funding competition was published in January 2024. It gave the funding figures for six degree apprenticeship courses at the University of the West of England and five at York St John University, with two at Bournemouth University. A fresh invitation to apply for funding was planned. When it published its grants of DAP from 2019 the Office for Students did not include Degree Apprenticeships. Their perceived value does not yet seem to have found its level.

Further Guidance by the Secretary of State was offered in April 2024 on the Strategic Priorities for 2024-5, concentrating on Degree Apprenticeships as ‘important alternatives to three-year degrees’ but also suggesting that Level 4 and 5 study can ‘in some cases, be better than degree-level study’ in terms of ‘employer demand and positive earnings outcomes for students’. A pilot Medical Degree Apprenticeship was in prospect. The ‘value’ of the Degree Apprenticeship seems to remain imperfectly clear.

Conclusion

In the published list of degree-awarding powers awards made by the Office for Students since 2019, eight were for Foundation degree-awarding powers only, the rest time-limited, or having a time-limit extended, and only one of them included RDAP. This suggests that the expansion of degree-awarding powers remains a work in progress, with its effects on the lifelong ‘value’ of a degree uncertain.

Even some research-intensive Russell Group universities such as York are now admitting to the risk of failure, blaming recent failures to increase tuition fees or taxpayer funding. The value of a degree from a provider which no longer exists remains to be tested. The Office for Students notes that a:
disorderly exit would mean that a provider closed in an unplanned way, perhaps in the middle of an academic year, and without arrangements in place to help students to complete their courses.

The help the Office for Students envisages offering students includes ‘ensuring that there are arrangements to archive records to ensure students can access evidence of their academic achievements in the future’ and generally providing information and advice. But that will not leave the student with a ‘degree’.

Are there grounds for concern?