“I’m convinced that the vast majority of my current students today will do jobs that don’t even exist yet,” says Prof Vittorio Bufacchi of University College Cork’s School of Society, Politics and Ethics.
His comments come after the University of Galway asked its academics to reimagine how arts courses are offered amid a drop off in enrolment as students seek “direct routes to employment”.
Under the proposal, the college’s bachelor of arts degree (GY101), which has 23 subject options, would be potentially replaced with “contemporary programmes designed to meet the learning needs of students”.
Dr Kiran Sarma, vice dean for Education at the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies at the University of Galway, says: “As with all universities, we continually review and refine our curriculum to ensure our courses evolve alongside the changing needs of our students and society.”
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However, Bufacchi believes that to “discontinue and replace general arts degrees feels like a drastic, disproportionate, knee-jerk reaction”.
The professor argues that, rather than pander to the perceived needs of employers, universities should give students a broader humanities foundation.
“AI is in its infancy, and no one knows its full impact on the future labour market, but we expect it to be devastating,” he says.
“So, the idea that universities should train our students for specific jobs, for the sake of offering ‘direct routes to employment’, is both absurd and ridiculous. The most important skill we can teach our students is the subtle art of thinking. Whatever they end up doing in their lives, the ability to think creatively and rigorously will stand them in good stead. That’s what arts degrees offer, and that’s why arts degrees are irreplaceable.”
In his view, the drop off in interest in arts degrees in Ireland is down to the prohibitive cost of study.
“As far as I’m concerned, the problem is not perceived lower occupational return, but perceived impossibility to afford three years at university. University fees in Ireland are very high compared to the rest of the EU. In some countries like Germany there are no fees, and in other countries like France and Italy they are very low, only a few hundred euros," he says.
“Secondly, the housing crisis. The cost of student accommodation in Ireland is shocking, and prohibitive for many students. Being a student has become a luxury that too many students cannot afford, especially those students not living in urban centres, or coming from large families."
Bufacchi concludes: “An arts degree is invaluable, inestimable and priceless. The humanities form the backbone of any society, and we need arts students more than ever today.”
A spokesman for the University of Galway stressed that the university is not proposing to discontinue general arts degrees. “There will always be a general Arts degree,” he said.
“The academics in the College, who teach and research in the Arts, have been asked for ideas and options as to how general arts might be provided if it were redesigned.”
He said that, as part of normal academic planning, a long-term curriculum review has been undertaken in the University’s College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies. “This is a forward-looking process designed to ensure that Arts education remains intellectually rigorous, relevant, and responsive to evolving student and societal needs. Part of this is an exploration of options to revise Arts programmes to meet changing demand and demographics.
“There will be no changes to any undergraduate Arts programmes before 2028 at the earliest.”
Aoife Burke, based in Galway, who completed a four-year arts degree in English and journalism from University of Galway in 2023 as a mature student at the age of 36, says that she believes it “could be positive that they are restructuring arts degrees”.
She is a freelance writer, who has recently completed a Tefl course to teach English as a second language.
In terms of reimagining the courses, Burke said that greater opportunities for remote learning would be appreciated as she believes the cost of attending college in person is prohibitive for many students.
“Even attending the college – I found the cost of eating there was so expensive. College is expensive as well. There’s this idea of a return on your investment because it’s so expensive,“ she says.
“You really have to think where you want to be at the end of your course. In the past you could say, ‘I can decide when I am finished,’ but now you need to know when you start where you want to end up.
“You can see that in fields relating to Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] degrees you get paid more, but I think if you are good at teaching or law you should do arts.”
Burke plans to study a master’s in writing in the University of Galway, with hopes to complete a PhD in writing as well. “I think with an arts degree you need to do a master’s of some sort just to specialise because there’s so much competition out there.”
Mary Gillen, a retired teacher in Staffordshire, England, but originally from Sligo, feels conflicted about the arts degree she was conferred with.
“If I had my time over, I would not choose to do a general arts degree,” she says.
While Gillen credits her BA International degree in English and German from what was then known as NUIG, as being “very beneficial” and “an advantage in life in terms of being a well-informed individual,” she feels that she made “all the wrong choices along the way due to lack of career advice and exposure to possibilities”.
She studied English, history, German and psychology in first year and said that for “impulsive reasons” she decided to specialise in English and German.
“I am very much in favour of language qualifications generally and certainly never regretted achieving my own in German, but I do regret having sacrificed a core part of my degree and the associated career opportunities in history in which I was demonstrating aptitude in order to gain that language qualification.
“It would have been more advantageous to have had the option to add a language to a more specific degree by completing an extra year of immersive study in the language rather than giving 50 per cent of the full degree over to the language,” she says.
From a working-class background, Gillen says that, “I believe that a big part of the problem in my time was a lack of good career advice and general support for students from less advantaged backgrounds. I think that overall a more specific course would have served me better – an English and history degree, or a literature-only degree.”
After completing her degree in 2000, she worked in hospitality jobs in Germany earning modest wages before eventually returning to complete a master’s degree. “I did go back to university in Galway a decade later, as a single parent, and did really well in a master’s in International Contemporary Literature and Media. I loved the course and was proud to have set that example for my son, but even with the MA under my belt, I was still forced to make the choice for us to emigrate.
“Perhaps the key to success, lies in reimagining rather than replacing,” she suggests.
Guidance counsellor Donnchadh O’Mahony welcomes the “reimagining” of the traditional arts degree.
“I am an arts graduate myself. I do think arts degrees are employable, but they have to evolve,” he says.
He particularly praises the Maynooth University bachelor of arts degree (MH101), where students can test out as many of the 32 subjects as they want for the first four weeks, before choosing two, three or four subjects to complete in their first year.
Students also have the option of transferring out of this module to other undergraduate degrees such as law, computer science and business, provided they pass certain modules.
“Guidance counsellors love it because they love that flexibility,” he adds.
In fact, in spite of the perceived sustained decline in interest in arts degrees, the Maynooth degree, according to O’Mahony, is the most popular degree on the Central Applications Office, the organisation responsible for overseeing undergraduate applications third-level institutions in Ireland.
“You can see that arts is not the issue,” the guidance counsellor says, citing the 1,750 students who enrolled in the course in 2025.
He also praises the University of Limerick Pathways BA, which requires students to select one of four career-orientated “pathway” options, and 15 transferable skills modules, along with an extended eight-month work placement.
Another degree he highlights is TU Dublin’s new liberal arts-style degree where students will have 18 months before they declare their major subject. The first year of the degree will welcome students in September 2026.
O’Mahony, who runs an Instagram page titled @leavingcertguidance, suggests that universities should offer an arts degree with as much choice as possible, with a handful of core modules that demonstrate skills for employers.
“I would suggest that Irish universities offer three compulsory modules; maybe one in digital and AI literacy, one in data interpretation and one in sustainability.
“Previously, arts graduates would go into employers and say I have communications skills, I have research skills, but none of this was measurable to employers. They were just going on the word of the arts graduate.
“But I do think that on the transcript now, they must pick modules with transferable skills that have been tested.”
He adds that concern about direct employability straight out of an arts degree is misplaced.
“There aren’t too many degrees where immediate returns are guaranteed. Even engineering degrees have an integrated master’s, a lot of computer science courses have an integrated masters. If you look at medicine, really you are not qualified when you finish your degree. There’s more years of training and specialisation. You can do a degree in accountancy, but there’s still loads of exams to do after that. Same with actuary.
“All of those degrees where you talk about ‘I know what my career is going to be afterwards’: it doesn’t mean immediate returns. You’ve a step in the right place. Most careers are like that.”
