Journalism degrees and jobs-the mismatch?

I am sure that this is a topic that is going to run and run over the dead months of August as Paul Bradshaw has asked the question in a post this morning as to should journalism degrees still prepare students for a news industry that doesn't want them?

The premise is that we could be facing the ultimate ground zero situation in a few years where the economics of the industry could mean that media organisations are shutting to an extent that there will be no jobs available.

I think that there are a number of perspectives to this argument.
Let's start from the point of view of the higher education system.Numbers are too high in many fields as universities are under pressure to perform as a profit centre.The balance between degree and job places is out of sync especially in the art subjects.But it is not just journalism,look at courses such as law and business related studies.

Numbers that are too high place enormous strains on the resources needed to teach,the result classes too large and inevitably the standard of teaching diminishes.It is no wonder that employers are starting to worry about the standards of student education and are bringing in their own measuring devices.

Now let me make that clear that journalism is only one of many subjects that is suffering from those problems.

With regard to journalism courses,I can only speak for the course that I am currently undertaking at Uclan.The journalist needs to be able to master many skills to compete in the real world and the degree generally tries to do that,given the constraints mentioned above.I would hope to come out of it this time next year having mastered the skills of being able to work in the journalism profession,whilst also showing an individuality and ability to think out of the box.
That second skill comes more from the university experience than the specific skills of the course.

Now the other side of the coin,the industry.In a rapidly changing environment,it is increasingly difficult I am sure to match skills to the industry.Courses,as Uclan has done will change to keep up with external developments,but the sheer logistics mean this is difficult to achieve in real time.

I don't agree that we are heading for the ground zero option.The nature and the structure of the industry will change,but jobs will still be there.However higher education facilities need to recognise that numbers will go down and must look at applications and adjust numbers.