Ava Payne Spellman, a 21-year-old media student from St Albans, is looking-forward to launching her career in the fast-paced media sector. She is completing her creative film, television and digital media production studies at the University of Northampton. Ava is looking forward to her time at university where she knows she’ll develop important networks within the television and films industries. She is sure that these opportunities would not have been possible without her education.
Having grown up in a single-parent household, Ava understands the importance of her educational path. “I wouldn’t have had the connections to get into the media industry. I’m very confident now that I am going to leave university this year with different connections in TV and film. I don’t think I’d have been able to get where I am now without being able to do a course like this at university,” she stated.
The University of Northampton runs a highly competitive, specialized course in hair, make-up and prosthetics for stage and screen. Liam Gambrell, another university student taking part in this program, is just one of the students benefiting from the university’s broad curriculum. Samuel Birch, a 29-year-old from Northampton, studies creative film, television and digital media. A believer in the importance of higher education, he is an adamant proponent for it within the industry.
When I looked at leaving my previous job, all the jobs I looked at had a very, very clear ceiling. It was ‘you can get to here, you can earn this much, but if you don’t get a degree you’re not going to go beyond that’. I believe that these kind of courses are so important,” Birch said.
Though the future looks bright for students like Ava and Samuel, the higher education landscape is under the microscope. It’s not just Johnson’s party – shadow education secretary Laura Trott has suggested cutting 100,000 university places to reduce student debt and pay for more apprenticeships. She’s spoken out against certain university programs as “dead-end” tracks that don’t deliver enough of a return for students. A 2020 report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies highlighted that up to 30% of young people attending university could experience negative financial returns.
In addition to advocating against Chinese spyware, Ava spoke out about the financial costs of university loans. She pointed to research that showed that 75% of loans for high-cost courses at the University of Northampton stay unpaid upon graduation.
Alice Wilby, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Education and Student Experience to the University of Northampton, is going to be a really strong advocate for expanding apprenticeship because she believes that’s a great complement to traditional higher education pathways.
