Despite their unprecedented fall in the University League Tables, and concerns about their objective decline raised by commentators over the years, Oxford and Cambridge’s prestige appears undented. Testimony to this is the enduring popularity of the Oxbridge Master’s. The last hope of Oxbridge rejects everywhere, the Oxbridge Master’s promises another shot for those who are still yearning for the prestige of an Oxbridge degree after their rejection at undergraduate level.
Those who do take another shot at Oxford, as I did, are often disappointed
While I cannot speak for Cambridge, those who do take another shot at Oxford, as I did, are often disappointed. Despite being marketed as “transformative opportunities” for graduates to specialise in a certain field, multiple postgraduate courses offer much less. My own course — International Relations— featured minimal contact hours, uninterested academics, module choices detached from the real world, and an “Introduction to IR” course so inadequate that students had to set up their own “Theory Clinics” to teach the core IR theories such as realism and constructivism because the actual course failed to do so.
Elsewhere, others have suggested that the MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, one of many Area Studies courses designed to train experts in geographical regions, does not teach its students up to fluency in the Middle East’s primary language, whereas other courses such as those at the Said Business School allegedly involve more networking than intellectual rigour. At the same time, Oxford usually offers these courses at exorbitant rates, with my course currently costing £48,860 for two years (higher for international students) and others, such as the Master in Public Policy costing £54,450 for a single year.
Despite this, postgraduate numbers have increased. In 2005/6, 3,291 postgraduates accepted a place at the university; in 2022/3, the figure had doubled to 6,702. At the same time, undergraduate numbers have remained stable to the point that graduates have started to outnumber undergraduates in recent years. What this suggests is that Oxford is making up for funding shortfalls by marketing expensive graduate degrees to pay for the undergraduate experience long after it stopped being profitable.
Expensive degrees, questionable quality, and yet people are still drawn to them. To some extent, the average Oxford Master’s degree is the absurd conclusion of our society’s obsession with credentialism. Many Oxford postgraduates, to be frank, appear to only be there so that they can have Oxbridge credentials to advertise to future employers, and are very happy to shell out tens of thousands of pounds to do so.
Who can blame them? The working world places an excessive premium on exclusive courses at elite institutions as an indicator of one’s ability. From Oxford PPE to Harvard Law, those who get into such programmes are placed on a pedestal above everyone else, regardless of whether they are actually the brightest and the best. This reflects a society which drives its members to maximise their value as economic units by going to the most prestigious universities, the most renowned graduate roles at the most respected companies. Credentials are the shallow currency of the working world.
As such, the content of the courses reflects the demands of its student consumers. The quality of teaching becomes secondary — what matters is bragging rights about having gone to Oxford. Such courses are effectively reduced to transactions wherein the university charges a fee for the right to add “Oxford University” to your LinkedIn profile.
It must be added that this does not describe all Oxford Master’s programmes. Others with personal experience have argued that their courses were intellectually stimulating and personally valuable. I am not denying that such courses exist nor are they worthless for someone pursuing a PhD or intellectual passions. But, as concerns have grown over Oxford’s decline, it is important to highlight that an increasing number of Master’s courses seem low-quality and more geared towards those seeking credentials.
As well as appealing credentialism, these courses remain popular due to the enduring cultural obsession with Oxbridge. Such is the esteem that Oxford and Cambridge are held in the public imagination that recent news of their decline in the University League Tables was met with disbelief and derision. Oxford students and alumni take fair criticisms of the university as jealous sniping from non-Oxbridge commentators still bitter about not getting in. “How much did Durham pay for this?” One meme page asked. This is perhaps why the news came as such a shock: even as Oxford has engaged in “misguided social engineering” and dumbed down courses, the cultural image of Oxford as the pinnacle of British education has resulted in talk of its decline being dismissed as absurd.
So too, can Oxford’s prestige be the source of its complacency regarding its Master’s courses. It doesn’t matter how poor quality they are, the logic would go, they will still be popular because of the Oxford name. Rather than talking up the quality of their courses, Oxford leans into its popular image in its marketing; the university’s social media accounts re-share dark academia “study tubers” depicting Oxford as the Harry Potter-esque paradise that international audiences perceive it to be while sharing their own photos of brooding libraries or carefully crafted shots of the Rad Cam at dusk.
As Oxford’s prestige endures in spite of its declining standards, this comes at the expense of non-Oxbridge universities which may offer superior courses. For instance, the London School of Economics (LSE), which now outranks it, or King’s College London (KCL) with its internationally-renowned War Studies Department. While I was taking eight-week courses on doing case studies or sitting through seminars on the Frankfurt School, students of IR-related courses at LSE and KCL could take modules on Technology, Security, and Global Politics, or U.S. Grand Strategy, or Open-Source Intelligence Analysis. LSE and KCL taught them crucial context and analysis skills for careers solving geopolitical issues, Oxford taught me how to critique the phallic shape of missiles from a postmodernist perspective and several ways to define an archive.
If you are a student thinking of having another crack at Oxbridge, then, take it from one reject to another: it’s probably not worth your time.
