OECD: universities ‘not telling truth’ to bolster cheap courses

A spike in the share of students opting to study courses that yield relatively low graduate earnings could be the result of universities misleading prospective students, according to the OECD’s director for education and skills.

Speaking at the launch of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance report, which provides data on the structure, finances and performance of education systems, Andreas Schleicher said that relatively slow growth in the number of people studying engineering in the UK compared with those taking arts and humanities courses could be explained by universities misleading prospective students to bolster recruitment on courses that are cheaper to run.

“There is no real decline in people going into engineering, but in the arts and humanities you have seen a doubling while in engineering it has remained constant,” he said. “The bottom line is you have a much lower share of people going into engineering.”