Image may contain: Woman, Girl, Pants, Face, Accessory, Sunglasses, Accessories, Female, Suit, Overcoat, Coat, Footwear, Shoe, Graduation, Clothing, Apparel, Person, Human

These are the uni courses that are officially the biggest waste of money

According to whether or not you’ll earn back your student loan


Around a quarter of university students are studying for degrees that have been deemed "never worth the money", according to a new study.

Creative Arts and Design, Psychology, Mass Communications, English and Education are among the courses that will fail to give graduates earnings that offset the cost of their tuition fees.

The average student leaves uni with debts of around £50,000, but go to uni because they believe it will be financially worthwhile in the future. However the report says in 2015-16, 40 per cent of graduates took courses that led to median earnings of less than the loan repayment threshold of £25,000 after five years.

The table below shows the courses where you earn the least, on average:

Image may contain: Menu, Symbol, Number, Word, Label, Text

10 per cent of students were on courses with median earnings of less than £25,000 after 10 years. This means a total of 134,000 students each year won’t be paying back anything even 10 years after they leave uni.

The report says: "20 per cent of graduates are no better off five years after graduating than if they had chosen to do a non-university route, such as an apprenticeship instead, when foregone earnings and apprenticeship premium is taken into account.”

The course that is the least value for money is Creative Arts and Design, followed by Agriculture, then combined honours courses and then Psychology.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

These are the degrees that will officially get you a job after uni, hooray!

Revealed: The courses who claim to be more stressed than you are right now

Revealed: The courses which have to pull the most all nighters to get work done