It was announced recently Taylor Swift will receive an honorary doctorate, she’s not the first and she won’t be the last celebrity to be given this prestigious award- but should celebrities receive honorary degrees?
On May 18, the 32-year-old will receive the honorary doctorate for fine arts at NYU, alongside accepting her degree, Swift will also be addressing the graduating class in a speech.
This news comes a month after NYU’s Clive Davis Institute launched the first-ever course on Taylor Swift, which ‘proposes to deconstruct both the appeal and aversions to Taylor Swift through close readings of her music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity.’
Undeniably Swift is an extremely successful individual, having won 11 Grammys amongst various other awards and accolades, but is it appropriate for collegiate matters like courses and awards to be dedicated to her?
Of course, Swift is not the first musician to have received an honorary degree. Joni Mitchell, Ed Sheeran, Bob Dylan and Kanye West are but a few honourable mentions on a surprisingly long list.
Indeed, this list also extends to those beyond the music industry, too, including stars such as actress Meryl Streep, comedian Billy Connolly, author JK Rowling and even the Queen of England.
Yet, surely this seems completely frivolous. It is hard to imagine the reasons behind why icons of fame and wealth would want a scroll of paper that bears no real use to them. This begs the question: should celebrities receive honorary degrees?
Undermining the value of a degree
Obtaining any sort of degree is extremely difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort that can be a lot to handle, whether that is the physical pain or mental toll that comes from the hours of reading and writing required.
While it’s certainly true that the rise to fame is not an easy journey either, the student life is a distinct struggle due to its intensive academic nature.
Add to this the insane amounts of money that students are forced to loan due to tuition fees and living expenses, and it is clear that there is a lot more at stake when it comes to achieving a college degree.
Although Swift has certainly mastered certain elements of the Fine Arts world – arguably, just one of her hit songs is evidence enough of that – to grant her a doctorate seems unfair, especially when compared to a standard graduate who has spent years analysing and understanding theory to secure the statutory level of knowledge.
Particulalrly in a world where ‘roughly 53% of recent graduates are unemployed or underemployed’, it seems almost tone-deaf to be handing celebrities degrees left, right and centre.
Are celebrities deserving?
Although it is certainly true that some celebrities put in the hours to reach their level of success, not all of them have. There are many cases of nepotism and more often than not, it is the fortunate circumstances surrounding an individual that assists them in reaching celebrity status.
Even if this is not the case, does someone deserve a whole degree for strumming a few chords on a guitar and writing a few lyrics?
Surely, there are more worthy people out there – for example, there are those who have made ground-breaking discoveries in research or others who have devoted themselves to social activism and charitable purposes. Swift will be receiving her honorary degree alongside disability rights activist Judith Heumann.
There are plenty of meritorious individuals out there who are not celebrities and would make excellent role models for students.
Hypocrisy
The primary reason behind why many celebrities are successful is that they did not go to college in the first place. In some cases, celebrities deliberately dropped out of college to pursue their other ambitions – perhaps the most notorious example of this would be Kanye West, who even wrote an entire album on being The College Dropout.
Therefore, does it not seem slightly hypocritical that celebrities are receiving degrees as a marker of their success when they were so against the idea of college to begin with?
It also seems slightly rich for colleges to endorse non-academic individuals, when their entire premise is centred around encouraging students to pay for an education and work hard towards a qualification. Several student critics have commented on how the dispensing of honorary degrees is a publicity stunt exhibited by colleges to add wealthier people to their donor lists, thus injecting more money into the institution.
The Bottom Line
Nobody is saying that Swift or indeed any other celebrity does not deserve to be recognised for their achievements. There is certainly a lot we can learn from celebrities and many of their qualities are admirable.
However, as an undergraduate myself working to attain a BA, seeing people who already have brilliant lifestyles with huge mansions and fancy cars receiving honorary degrees is pretty much a kick in the teeth. Surely a Grammy, or 11 in her case, is enough?