There was an interesting report out of the U.K.’s University and College Union (roughly the equivalent of our CAUT) last week, describing how the number of English degree programs (which, confusingly for us, are called “courses” over there) has fallen by a quarter in the last six years. The back-and-forth in the media between talking heads on this story was quite amusing, with a leftish union rallying around the banner of “choice” and a right-wing government claiming that the raw number of students and graduates matters more. Any old rhetorical port in a storm, I guess.

But it’s interesting to take a quick look at the stats behind this story:

Now “primary” degrees are what we might call “traditional,” single-subject degrees – history, physics, etc. Those are down by about 14%, and – despite what you may believe if you’ve been reading Stefan Collini in the Times Literary Supplement over the last couple of years – it’s down slightly more in the STEM fields than in humanities or social sciences.

But let’s focus on that massive gap between total courses and primary courses. In 2006, primary programs only made up one-tenth of all programs – the other nine-tenths were joint programs between disciplines, interdisciplinary programs and specialized programs nestled within a single discipline (e.g., urban history, development economics, etc). And these were cut at twice the rate of primary programs, meaning that 95% of all courses axed were non-primary.

There are two reasons for this, I think. The first is obviously political – precisely because these programs are by nature small and have few staff associated with them, they are easy pickings come budget time. But the second is more straightforwardly economic. The cost/benefit of these programs is much worse than commonly realized.

This is one of the better points made by Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovative University. On paper, the costs of these programs look trivial: you borrow staff from “real” departments, maybe hire an administrator part-time – what could be cheaper? But the real costs lie in the graduation requirements: students must take particular courses, some of which may have very low enrolments. And, of course, when you’re paying professors $150,000 per year and your income depends on enrolments, low-enrolment courses really hurt the bottom line.

So this U.K. data doesn’t necessarily suggest wild cutting (the number of academic staff actually increased by about 5% over this period). Rather, it suggests an attempt at pruning marginal programs. No doubt the results are not always pretty; but it’s an example Canadian institutions need to start considering for themselves.