The bachelor of arts was once a distinction that opened the gates to myriad options and rewarding jobs. But the BA’s sheen has worn away, to the point where even many of those who choose to complete one see it only as a stepping stone to the degree they really need.
In the last decade and a half, governments and universities keen on promoting accessibility and boosting enrolment flooded the market with BAs. But as the degree became common, employers grew hungrier for students trained with specific skills and ever-more-advanced degrees.
It meant that to get many desirable jobs, students had to do more than just a BA. Though enrolment in many arts and science programs is still rising, BA graduates are a shrinking portion of the university population. Between 1999 and 2009, full-time undergraduate enrolment increased by 40 per cent, but graduate enrolment expanded by 70 per cent as the popularity of master’s programs exploded.
There is also concern that not enough of these graduates excel at the liberal arts education’s core skills – writing, critical thinking, research ability, social curiosity – for the BA to carry much weight, leaving students feeling obligated to get graduate, professional or college credentials to prove their worth.
“What does a BA get you?” said Ken Coates, dean of arts at the University of Waterloo. “It creates a series of opportunities that would not be there otherwise, and a lot of the students are now coming in with a two-stage process very much in mind.”
The good news for new undergraduates, however, is that the financial benefits of a university degree have only risen.
According to research co-authored by Thomas Lemieux, a labour economist at the University of British Columbia, graduates of all bachelor’s degrees collectively earned 40 per cent to 50 per cent more than high-school graduates in 2005, a gap that widened since 1980. Meanwhile, in two recessionary years leading up to September of 2010, Canada created 280,000 net new jobs needing a university degree, while shedding 260,000 jobs for those without one, according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.
But BAs earn less than those with applied degrees, such as a bachelor of science, Dr. Lemieux said. And a recent study by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, tracking the region’s graduates two years later, showed liberal arts students earned the least and were far less likely to have jobs that require a degree. BA students fare better five years after graduation, but surveys suggest many BA holders go back to school long before then.
Hadia Akhtar, 24, has just finished a BA in political science, economics and French at the University of Toronto. She began applying for jobs in February but found the market “pretty rough” and feels lucky to have landed a six-month internship that will take her abroad and pay her just enough to get by.
“I think [the BA] should be less of a stepping stone toward doing other degrees,” she said, adding that she is feeling compelled to apply to graduate programs right away, despite being $35,000 in debt.
The BA, of course, has never been all about employability, but was praised for its inherent value in broadening and challenging young minds. But even that goal has been impacted by large and impersonal lecture-style classes, with little access to busy professors.
“I thought [my degree] would be a lot more than what I was getting from it,” Ms. Akhtar said. “It was very unilateral the way we were learning – that’s not good in an academic setting. The professor is just throwing out information at us.”
Ms. Akhtar considered 80 students a small class for her first three years, a trend she sees “spreading all across Canada.”
At some Ontario universities, more than a third of first- and second-year classes now have more than 100 students, according to government data. Higher Education Strategy Associates, which tracks the number of classmates per class at universities across the country through student surveys, estimates a much larger chunk of first-year classes – between 45 and 75 per cent at most large and mid-size universities – have more than 100 students.
