Niche courses are important

Today, the Lincolnshire Echo is attacking niche courses at universities. The article says (please ignore their typo):

But everything from golf science and acupuncture to computer games production and tourism management are offer at the University of Lincoln.

They then have a quote from TaxPayers’ Alliance, the right-wing noisemakers who claim to speak for the taxed, which describes golf studies as “dubious”.  Well, if we stick with golf studies as the example, is it “dubious”?

Perhaps on the surface, it’s easy to criticise the course as nonacademic, pointless etc – but when you take into consideration that the golf economy for Europe, Middle East and Africa is worth 53 billion euros, it becomes a lot more relevant. When there’s an industry this big, there’s going to be a huge demand for workforce, from research and development, to coaching staff, to marketing – and so on. Why would you do a degree in English, or another core subject, when you can specify? This is true for many other courses.

I study journalism. People may criticise that as nonacademic, but to get into journalism you need a degree. Sure, I could do english, but then I’d have to do another course after that to train me as a journo. Plus, within my specific course at the University of Lincoln, comprehensive training is offered. I study law, history, writing, making websites, design, radio, tv – and more. I wouldn’t get this sort of in-depth, entirely relevant and useful training to be a journalist if I studied english.

If there’s a market for it, there’ll be a degree for it. And rightly so. The bigger problem is blindly encouraging 50% of the population to get a degree, when we have so many shortfalls in blue-collar jobs and skilled labourers.