What is a Bachelor of Arts? An analysis of Australian university representations

In Australia, the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree is paradoxically disparaged and valued across political and public discourse. However, contestations over this ‘evolving degree’ occur without reference to its specific characteristics and claims made of it. This paper aims to generate fresh empirical insights into contemporary framings of the BA and consider how a key non-vocational degree is represented in a cultural and policy context that assumes students are rational actors focused on future employment and earnings. To do so, we analysed website materials from fifteen Australian universities across two university groups (high-status, research-intensive universities and typically younger universities). Choice and flexibility, different ways of thinking, engagement with ‘real world’ contexts, and positive post-graduation outcomes emerged as defining features of a BA degree. We argue that such representations construct the BA as a site through which the dominance of neoliberalism in Australian higher education is accommodated and challenged.