Are the Public Getting Drama Schools All Wrong?

I’ve been having meetings with drama schools over the past few weeks – and they’ve been engaging on so many levels. The overwhelming majority are very tuned in; some are so enthusiastic about my genre of TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) but it still sadly surprises me how little curriculum time is dedicated to unpacking this area of work with their students. But I guess that’s more to do with pressure on the overall curriculum than anything else. Not being on the inside, it’s hard to judge. One or two, sadly, still need a bit more persuading that this professional canon of work isn’t just about running a few workshops in a school on a wet Friday afternoon. Some work to do there.

Of course, I’ve been working in partnership with HE and conservatoires for years. I used to teach at Central School of Speech and Drama (before it was given its ‘Royal’ title) in the late 1990s, teaching MA, BA and PGCE students on what were then brand new courses that have since evolved into what we now call Applied Theatre. That connection continued through several AHRC funded collaborations with the late Sally Mackey – the most engaging probably being Challenging Place and Performing Places, projects exploring how young people think about place, both in real life and through digital media.

At Half Moon, drama schools were important partners. Their students provided a great and willing recruitment ground for the many professional productions we created and toured nationally as well as for participatory work. One particularly fruitful relationship was with Rose Bruford, where between 2008 and 2016 we ran numerous projects with MA and BA students across various disciplines – including Acting and Actor-Musicianship – devising and directing productions such as Up, Up and Away and Scrub-a-Dub.

At one point, the University of East London even had a dedicated TYA undergraduate course unit, and we had the privilege of making with students dozens of new pieces of theatre as part of their programme. More recently, my collaboration with Manchester University’s Drama Department continues, focusing on scriptwriting and artform development, including documentation of commissioning and theatre practice as action research.

In preparing for these recent conversations, I did some reading – there’s a lot of writing about higher education, much of it genuinely fascinating. Along the way, I came across a report published in August by the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), entitled Public hugely overestimate graduate regret and underestimate the economic value of universities while being wrong about tuition fees – new study [read full report here}. Not the zappiest of titles, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. And it made me stop and think – not just about universities in general, but about drama schools and the wider performing arts training world.

The research shows that the public is badly out of step with the reality of higher education. People tend to believe that graduates regret their degrees, that student debt has ruined lives, and that universities are bloated institutions out of touch with the ‘real world’. But the data tells a very different story.

When asked, people guessed that around 40% of graduates would choose not to go to university if they could do it again. The actual figure is only 8%. And while nearly half of us think student debt hangs over graduates like a cloud, only 16% say it’s had a negative impact.

That matters for drama schools too, because they’re universities in all but name. They sit within the same funding, policy and public perception frameworks – but on a smaller scale, with higher costs and a deeply vocational purpose. Yet the same myths about value and ‘return on investment’ cling to them even more stubbornly.

People often question whether an arts degree or conservatoire-style training is ‘worth it’. But that question comes from the same misunderstandings highlighted in this study about how higher education really works and what it contributes.

The truth, according to this report, is that drama schools are part of one of the UK’s most significant cultural export sectors. Higher education as a whole brings in £24.6 billion a year from overseas – more than aircraft manufacturing or telecommunications – and employs over half a million people. That includes drama schools and conservatoires who train artists, educators and technicians and whose work reaches global audiences, whether on stage, screen or in classrooms.

We forget that institutions like RADA, LAMDA, Mountview or Central are not just producing actors; they’re nurturing creative professionals who lead projects, run companies, teach, write and innovate across the cultural economy. Their graduates feed into film, TV, gaming, education, applied theatre and community arts – all of which generate cultural and social value as well as income.

This report is a useful reminder that universities (and by extension, specialist colleges like drama schools) are central to the UK’s creative and economic identity.

So perhaps it’s time we changed the story. Instead of seeing drama schools as a financial gamble or a narrow path to fame, we could recognise them as part of a vital cultural infrastructure – training creative citizens who contribute to the UK’s social fabric and international standing.

The arts aren’t separate from higher education; they are one of its most vibrant expressions. And if this research tells us anything, it’s that the public could do with updating their assumptions about what education in the arts is really worth.

So, if you work in HE and any of this sparks thoughts about how a TYA specialist might contribute to what you’re doing or align with your programmes – or if you’re exploring your curriculum to better reflect the world we find ourselves in and are looking for a collaborator – do get in touch. I’m always up for a conversation. Drop me a message via this blog or the contact form on this website.

Until next time.