Postgraduate degrees pay off for journalism students, survey shows

Figures presented by the National Student Survey and Unistats show significant differences in employment rates between graduates from undergraduate and postgraduate journalism courses.

The NSS survey results are based on feedback from more than 220,000 final year students on undergraduate courses across the UK and are added to the Unistats platform which also shows data on postgraduate courses.

According to figures for higher education institutes which had statistics available for the last year, the highest graduate employment rate for undergraduates was 73 per cent at Staffordshire University compared to the lowest of 35 per cent from Sunderland University.

But postgraduate employment rates appear to be significantly higher. At Sheffield University, undergraduate employment was rated at 65 per cent, compared with a postgraduate figure of 90 per cent. Similarly, at the University of the Arts in London 64 per cent of undergraduates made it into graduate jobs compared with 85 per cent of postgraduates.

Cardiff University also followed the trend, with 45 per cent of undergraduates finding graduate employment compared with 96 per cent of postgraduates.

The survey also measures satisfaction levels, with a total of three universities receiving a satisfactory rating from more than 90 per cent of students.

The highest overall satisfaction figure was received by Sheffield University from 95 per cent of journalism students, closely followed by the University of Central Lancashire with 94 per cent.

In a statement released following the publication of the statistics, City University said it came top in London with 88 per cent of students satisfied overall. Head of journalism Professor George Brock said in a release that a £12 million upgrade of the school last year was likely to have contributed to its success.

The NSS is run by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and covers courses at publicly funded Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Britain. It also includes courses at some further educational colleges.

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