Novelists issue plea to save English degrees as demand slumps

Authors blame government ‘prejudice’ against humanities, as loss of applicants hits university courses

Novelists including Mark Haddon this week accused the government of “baseless prejudice” against the humanities as they made an impassioned plea for universities not to ditch their English degrees despite a slump in applications.

By the January application deadline this year, 7,045 18-year-olds in the UK had applied to study English at university, a fall of more than a third from 10,740 in 2012, according to data from the admissions service Ucas. Experts say this is because far fewer students are now studying English at A-level. Over the same period there has been a boom in applications for subjects such as computer science, psychology and maths.

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