JAKARTA - The plan to cut jobs at the University of Exeter, England, opened a wider debate about the future of humanities education. This issue arises when the campus faces cost pressures, demands for graduates who are ready to work, and changes in the world of work due to AI.
Anadolu Agency, quoted on Friday, July 31, reported that the University of Exeter's restructuring proposal was announced in June. The plan will reduce the equivalent of about 150 full-time positions and affect about 500 staff during the consultation process.
According to a staff representative, most of the proposed reductions are in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Humanities include fields such as literature, language, history, philosophy, art, and cultural studies. These fields have long been associated with critical thinking, reading social change, and understanding people.
The Exeter issue came to light after Ruby Granger, a popular YouTube creator and alumnus of the campus, received a message from the student union. He was asked to highlight the job-cutting plan at his former university.
Initially, Granger thought the case only happened in Exeter. However, after uploading a video about the plan, he received hundreds of comments from students, academics, and graduates who told of similar cuts at other universities in the UK, Europe, Australia, and the United States.
"I was very angry," Granger told Anadolu.
"They are tutors who are still in touch with me, people who gave so much to me and my friends during our college days," he said.
The University of Exeter said the proposal was still in the consultation stage. The campus said restructuring was needed to maintain long-term sustainability amid rising costs, falling real tuition income, underfunded research, and weakening demand from international students.
"The university is not proposing the closure of any department or discipline, and on the basis of this proposal Exeter will continue to have one of the largest faculties of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in the UK," the University of Exeter said in a statement to Anadolu.
The campus also expressed hope that changes could be made through voluntary measures. Exeter admitted to working with trade unions to avoid compulsory layoffs as much as possible.
The pressure on British higher education is not just happening at Exeter. In recent years, a number of universities in the UK have announced restructuring and job cuts.
The trigger is layered, ranging from rising costs, frozen domestic tuition fees, to uncertainty in the recruitment of international students.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency reported that the number of academic staff at UK higher education providers fell for the first time. The decline was 1 percent in the 2024-2025 academic year.
Michael J. Flexer, a lecturer in English Literature at Exeter and one of the heads of the University and College Union branch on campus, was quoted by Anadolu as saying that this issue could not be seen as a financial matter.
He said staff had begun to organize themselves several months before the restructuring proposal was announced to the public.
"The University of Exeter is an excellent university. We already have something valuable, and all we need to do is maintain it," said Flexer.
According to Flexer, Exeter is still in a relatively strong financial position. He mentioned the existence of a budget surplus, large cash reserves, and student recruitment that is still ongoing.
Flexer said that the union representative had repeatedly asked the management to provide detailed evidence to support the long-term projection of the campus.
"We still haven't received a serious, detailed, and data-based answer," he said.
The debate then widened to the way the campus assesses graduates. For years, universities have been under increasing pressure to prove that their graduates are easy to enter the workforce.
Flexer assessed that higher education should not necessarily be read only from the needs of today's labor market. Students who start college now will only enter the workforce in six or seven years. At that time, the need for technical skills could change.
According to Flexer, the campus should equip students with skills that are still useful even though technology is changing rapidly.
"But I can honestly tell students that the ability to think clearly, communicate, work with others, imagine, ask questions, and remain curious will always be useful," said Flexer.
Universities UK, an institution that represents 142 higher education institutions, acknowledges that campuses are facing severe financial pressures. However, the institution reminds that the long-term role of humanities education should not be overlooked.
"We should all be concerned about any reduction in the flow of humanities graduates because, in the era of AI, we will likely increasingly value an understanding of how humans think and act, not the other way around," Universities UK Chief Executive Vivienne Stern told Anadolu.
Amelia Morris, a lecturer in Communication at Exeter, said the humanities and social sciences help students understand the power embedded in seemingly neutral language. The field also helps develop critical thinking and creativity to respond to growing social challenges.
Peter Riley, senior lecturer in American Literature, said the discipline of humanities also plays a role in questioning authority and holding institutions accountable. According to Riley, the contribution of humanities does not stop in the classroom.
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