Emerging from rules-based high school and adolescence, we are told that we now enjoy freedom and autonomy. But in reality, institutions bind us in the margins, and we end up having to view financial stressors as “opportunities”. The illusion of choice is a veil that drapes heavily over the eyes of arts students. Despite the advertised freedom of an arts degree, increased tuition fees and course cuts are limiting students’ options. And for many, including myself, the decision to pursue an arts degree opens the doors to scrutiny from family members and friends, with the typical question being: “and what do you plan to do with that?”. Though they may cast the blame on us, do we really have a choice at all?
We all remember the rain that pelted down on the first day of university this year. On that pleasant Monday, I was standing by the side of the road, trying to figure out which bus would get me to my first university lecture. Rather unpleasantly, I was splashed by a passing bus and had soaked jeans for the rest of the day. The concept of locus of control is used in psychology to describe the extent to which one feels they have agency over their life. If you have an internal locus of control, then you’re like me, and you blame yourself for standing so close to the curb. However, if you have an external locus of control, then you accept that there was nothing you could do about the bus driver’s frenzied curbside park.
When we open our university applications, we are met with an overwhelmingly long drop-down list of degrees. The degrees we decide to pursue are supposed to be chosen based on our desires and passions first and then logistics second. The average bachelor degree currently costs between $20,000 and $45,000. This makes many feel that tertiary education is an investment that needs to turn a profit, in the form of employment opportunities, and social mobility. It often pressures students to opt for degrees that promote a specialised skill and a clear trajectory for employment. For others who come from affluent backgrounds, university can be more so about the experience and pursuing a genuine passion.
Studying the arts is often associated with a romanticised university experience of freedom and intellectual enrichment. Under the Morrison government, the tuition fees for some arts courses doubled in Australian universities, increasing the perceived risk of investment in an arts education. Nonetheless, the demand for the Bachelor of Arts (BA) has only increased, with many students believing that the extra cost is worth the freedom it buys.
But even the illusion of choice within the arts is beginning to unravel. The BA is branded as one of the most flexible degrees, supposedly placing freedom and autonomy in the hands of the student. While students at the University of Sydney are offered over 60 majors in the BA, course cuts within these majors have seriously inhibited the flexibility that students have in structuring their degree. The University of Sydney champions the “breadth and diversity” of its philosophy major, despite the plan for 25 Philosophy units to be either cut or merged in 2025. Ironically, the course that is most designed for intellectual growth, becomes increasingly narrow.
Across majors, students still face frustrations with mandatory units like FASS1000 and OLEs ramping up the already-notoriously-high fees of the BA. These mandatory units take up space in the “most flexible” degree, and they’re only being introduced rather than taken away. FASS1000, introduced in 2021, takes up 6 credit points, and OLEs take up another 12. For students enrolled in Advanced Studies, there are an additional 12 credit points in Advanced coursework units. It disconnects students from their education and results in us paying over $600 for a self-guided online course about sleep because, well, what other choice do we have?
University is also less of an “experience” for students who face the intensifying conflict between education and paid work under the rising cost of living. In 2024, younger Australians are spending up to 25% of their income on groceries, and it’s not because they’re earning less. A shortage of rental homes and increased food prices has meant that university students are being forced to take on more paid employment and part time work in order to make ends meet. What choices do these students have?
In my own confrontations with the paradoxical experience that is forced risk-taking, the most difficult reality to accept was the fact that I had no choice in taking on the burdening risks of the BA. In some ways, I have opened doors by pursuing my passion in the humanities, yet in other ways, my freedom to manoeuvre around has been limited. While HECS will likely affect my borrowing power one day, today I’m bludging through compulsory OLEs. Needless to say, my internal locus of control has been shattered, and to cope with this, I have tried to flaunt my degree as a part of a new daring and adventurous persona. But no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise, the truth is that I have been left to solve some problems that I haven’t created.
And so, being backed into a corner is not a unique experience. In our journey as students, some of us log into Sydney Student and hit “suspend my studies” to save our mental health, while others stick with majors they hate because they can’t afford to stack up the tuition debt. It took me time and some self-compassion to realise that I was face to face with an institution that I could not control. And, I’m slowly getting better at comfortably saying “I don’t know” when my Chinese relatives inevitably ask about my career goals. So I have since given up my locus of control and stopped arguing with myself about whether I made the right decision because, simply, there were no decisions to make. Being backed into a corner is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of redirection and growth. Sometimes, the risks we take aren’t risks at all, but the only way forward.
