But with the increasing specialisation of university degrees targeting particular career paths, is the BA still worth pursuing?

Recent controversy over the Australian National University refusing funding from the Ramsay Centre for a BA studying western civilisation highlighted the role an arts degree plays in society, and its relative independence.

Central Queensland University recently conducted a five-year review of its BA, overseen by senior lecturer Dr Michael Danaher.

The review found the degree had increasing influence in cross-over and double degrees, with students picking up arts subjects to complement their more career-focused studies.

Dr Danaher said the BA remained an important field of study that set students up with a broader, more compassionate and open-minded understanding of the world around them.

“A lot of the students who do the arts units that are housed in the [BA] actually come from other degrees, such as social work or education or environmental science,” he said.

“Those students are getting a different perspective on what they would normally be doing in their own degrees.”

Leading scientist and former Australian Research Council chief executive Margaret Sheil recently moved to QUT, to take up the role of vice-chancellor.

She previously held senior roles at the University of Melbourne and the University of Wollongong.

While QUT does not provide a BA, Professor Sheil said she had witnessed a resurgence of interest in the degree in her previous positions as a solid generalist degree that taught critical thinking and writing.

“I think it’s never really gone away, actually, the students that are interested in politics and philosophy and political science – different universities offer different mixes of subjects in that,” she said.

“In Melbourne we saw there was very strong demand, but that was partly the [University of Melbourne] model which means that you do an arts degree and then you potentially do something else after it.

“The bachelor of arts is still very strong there, it’s still very strong at ANU and UQ.”

The increasing rise of double degrees or ongoing studies means many people are completing an arts degree then continuing into law or another degree, she said, extending their time in university, but also their understanding.

Dr Danaher said some courses at CQU, such as accounting, had deliberately made units of an arts degree compulsory for their students.

Having accountants with a strong grounding in history, ethics and sociology gave them a better footing to face the world and perform at work, he said.

But while universities are increasingly making use of the BA, the challenge remained to convince people that the degree wasn’t a waste of time, or a delaying tactic before finding a career.

“People who run BAs have always got to be learning how to communicate the value of their [degree] again, and it’s a real challenge because you’re up against all the other vocational kinds of degrees,” Dr Danaher said.

“If we don’t get the message out there to students and parents, they’ll dismiss the bachelor of arts.”

As a strong generalist degree providing students with a fundamental understanding of history, society, culture and ethics, the arts degree can be interpreted in different forms through different universities.

Bond University executive director of strategy Ken Richardson said the private, not-for-profit university focused on allowing students to select topics from different degrees to develop a deep knowledge base.

“The popularity of the [arts] degree may have waned over the years, but at the same time we have seen the creation of a vast number of innovative programs and dual-degree offerings that are responding to the same need for a combination of breadth and specialisation,” he said.

The university also provides a free secondary training program encouraging critical thinking and innovation – themes usually closely aligned with the BA.

Professor Sheil said the BA was an area particularly attractive to donors and sponsors keen to support the humanities and traditional degrees.

“Philanthropists and donors have wanted to engage in that space,” she said.

“Melbourne’s got a number of examples there which have been highly successful, philanthropy has funded a chair in Irish studies, it’s funded a chair in classics … I think it’s been an area where people, donors and others, have wanted to maintain that kind of high level of scholarship.”

Academic rigour and academic freedom are two aspects all universities hold as a matter of pride, with committees inspecting all new degrees and units thoroughly for their subject matter and student interest.

Questions around academic independence were at the heart of ANU rejecting a Ramsay Centre funding offer, with fears that the western civilisation degree at the heart of it would risk being unduly influenced by the foundation.

Dr Danaher said a small university like CQU could not necessarily offer all the arts subjects it wanted, such as philosophy, but academics could choose what they taught and how without any influence from higher up.

That independence meant academics had no obligation to teach a particular subject or present a particular viewpoint, he said.

Likewise, Bond University’s council is the only answerable governing body, Mr Richardson said.

“Bond’s independence is at the core of our foundation and our ongoing success,” he said.

“We simply do not enter into arrangements that might compromise our independence.”

Professor Sheil said the crux of the matter was communication: while many universities relied upon financial backing of philanthropists and sponsors, the expectations on both sides needed to be clearly laid out.

“The donors may set some expectations around what they’re seeking to achieve as an outcome, but the decisions around the hiring and firing and the management of people are up to the university,” she said.

“Decisions on course content are normally done by the academic board and that seems to be where this has broken down [at ANU].”

So does the BA still have a role in society, or should students select more mainstream and direct-to-career degrees free of apparent social influences?

Professor Sheil said if the BA were to disappear, “we’d be the poorer for it”.

She pointed to a time when she was working at the University of Wollongong, when questions were raised about the validity of continuing to provide units in Russian history.

“People had the view that maybe Russian history wasn’t really relevant any more – now understanding Russia is so critical for world politics,” she said.

“It’s important that we have people here in Australia who understand Russia.”

Dr Danaher said a society that dismissed a BA as no longer necessary in a time of increasing specialisation would risk losing an ethical centre.

“Students wouldn’t be learning about history or geography, or the liberal arts, they wouldn’t be learning about a lot of these things,” he said.

“They wouldn’t have a long-term perspective on the world … they wouldn’t understand human struggles.

“If you had a society without the BA, there’d be something missing, the piece that brings everything together.”