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Journalism course acceptances rise for fourth year in a row

UCASThe popularity of university journalism courses has risen in the last three years despite the decline in the number of jobs in the industry, new figures have revealed.

Statistics released by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, which oversees the application process for higher education institutions in the UK, show a total of 3,370 people were accepted on to journalism courses last year.

This compares to 2,145 in 2007, the first year recorded by the research.

The rise came despite a fall of 6,000 in the number of journalists employed in the UK between 2013 and 2o15.

According to the UCAS figures, the peak year for journalism acceptances was 2011, when a total of 3,405 students were granted places on courses.

The number dipped to 2,995 the following year, but has risen on an annual basis ever since.

The figures also show more women have been accepted on to courses than men every year for which figures were available, except 2008.

According to the Labour Force Survey for 2015, there were 64,000 people employed in journalism in the year to June 2015, compared with 70,000 two years previously.

The full figures, shown to the nearest five places, can be seen below:

Year Total accepted Men accepted Women accepted
2007 2145 995 1155
2008 2390 1195 1195
2009 2840 1355 1485
2010 3150 1510 1640
2011 3405 1640 1760
2012 2995 1390 1605
2013 3065 1480 1585
2014 3215 1510 1705
2015 3370 1505 1865

15 comments

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  • January 14, 2016 at 9:19 am
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    Poor kids. But that’s what happens when you turn education into a business. Bums on seats, money talks.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    Puts you in mind of lemmings, doesn’t it?
    But it’s not their fault.
    While universities can cynically make money out of selling the dream – despite the obvious reality that there are fewer and fewer jobs out there – they will continue to do so.
    I made a phone enquiry about a journalism lecturer’s job several years ago and asked the question: “But how come these journalist courses are flourishing when the industry is in free-fall and the job market is imploding?”
    There was a brief pause at the other end of the line before the course leader replied, with a chuckle I can still recall: “Well, that’s the elephant in the room isn’t it?”
    As long as they can get away with it, universities will.
    And prospects in the newspaper business have got much worse since then.
    I would not be at all surprised if universities start running astronaut degree courses in the near future – very few job prospects but hey, who cares, there’s no shortage of people willing to pay the fees.
    Trebles all round.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 11:43 am
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    There are cheaper options than these courses, £45K of debt, isn’t the smart move.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 12:08 pm
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    Odd that, year on year, there have been mostly more females on males enrolling in these courses. I always thought women were supposed to have more sense than men.

    I’ve told my son, who is in the last year of his (non media) degree, that I would disown him if he followed me into journalism. I was only half-joking.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 12:15 pm
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    So, what – let’s just stop offering any training in these (highly transferable) skills just because the industry’s changing? While we’re at it, should we ban drama courses and writing courses because not many of the students will become rich and famous, so why bother? In fact, hey, maybe all arts training is just cynically exploiting young people if it doesn’t directly lead to a job? Seriously? The courses reflect the changing industry and trainee journalists are taught to be entrepreneurs as well as being industry ready.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 12:36 pm
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    If you fancy being saddled with a lifetime of debt you’ll never be able to afford to pay back, go ahead, study and forge a career in this thankless, foundering and doomed industry. Scandalous!

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  • January 14, 2016 at 12:39 pm
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    I was told fairly recently by a very senior figure at a leading northern university not to worry about the redundancies elsewhere at the institution as there wouldn’t be any in the journalism department because it made the most money.

    It’s a con.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 1:21 pm
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    Madness. Sheer madness. I speak to people who’ve done university journalism courses and they tell me it was mostly all in the classroom, a load of media theory. For £9k a year? Good luck to them all, but they’ll get a nasty shock when they graduate and take one look at the job market and the statement from the student loans company.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 8:39 am
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    Even when journalism wasn’t in its current state uni degrees in journalism were a waste of time. Better off with an 18 week post grad instead, 850 notes I paid for mine – the same price as a pint of Brahma in a hotel, bargain. Media studies degrees too, total kecks.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 9:46 am
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    So lets get this right then.
    The unis are churning out over 3000 journalism grads a year.
    JP now has just 1000 journalists, down from a couple of thousand a few years ago.
    TM, Newsquest, etc probably employ a few thousand more.
    So, overall, the annual production of journalists i reaching the total number employed in the industry.
    Shouldn’t someone tell the kids?
    They might want to invest their money elsewhere.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 9:46 am
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    Many of the best operators in Fleet Street’s heyday had never sat an exam in their life.
    Universities cannot teach common sense and that, along with the common touch, is what you most need in newspapers.
    A lot of so-called educational courses are really about control.
    The National Union of Journalists campaigned for graduate entry into journalism along with the old Editors’ Guild. That wasn’t out of altruistic motives, but merely to bump up wages.
    They’ve created a middle class closed shop in the profession. Perhaps that is one reason why circulations are nose-diving.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 10:55 am
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    In my last newsroom I worked with three juniors, all graduates of journalism degree courses. Not one was industry-ready when they arrived. Even some basic skills were lacking. Two of the three had a middle class background. One has already left the industry for a more profitable sector.
    The newsroom I joined as a junior with my NCTJ pre-entry exam passes and a couple of A Levels, was staffed mainly by working class reporters who had come straight from school or via the Univerty of Life. They were probably better educated, better prepared and certainly more literate.
    But that’s just my perspective. I’m just relieved that my children did not follow their parents into journalism.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 3:37 pm
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    Agreed Jupiter, newspaper journalism used to be a trade and not a profession, plenty of people joining straight from school and from working class backgrounds. So many of our problems in society now stem from the fact the political class is only scrutinised by people with the exact same background as them.

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  • January 15, 2016 at 3:48 pm
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    Yep – alumni of the ‘Univerty’ of Life are far more literate!
    (Sorry!)

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  • January 16, 2016 at 1:02 pm
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    Sub-a-dub-dub That’ll teach me to find my glasses next time I feel the sudden urge to comment!

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