You Can Now Study to Become an Influencer at University: The Cost of the 3-Year Degree Is Eye-Watering
Creating content for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube is now being taught as a course at universities. Programs focused on content creation, launched in the UK and the US, teach students everything from shooting videos to negotiating with brands. However, the cost of this degree is steep and even those within the industry are debating its true necessity.
Graduated at 21, Started Earning Money
Destiny McGowan, a 21-year-old, graduated from the content creation department of Nottingham Trent University in the UK this past July. The university had just launched this department in 2022.
The curriculum not only teaches students how to create engaging content, but also covers how to build an audience, collaborate with brands, and monetize their content. While Destiny remains tight-lipped about her earnings, she asserts that she has already started making money. She shares fashion content on her own account, creates videos for others, and works as a sales host promoting products on TikTok live broadcasts.
According to her, the most significant contribution of the department has been the access to equipment and industry connections. She believes that the people she met at the university panels would have otherwise taken her at least five years to connect with.
Annual Fee 634 Thousand Lira
Similar programs are now also available at the University of Brighton in the UK and Arizona State University in the US. However, these educations do not come cheap.
The annual fee for the three-year programs at Nottingham Trent and Brighton for students in the UK is 9,790 pounds, which is approximately 634,000 liras. The total for three years reaches 1.9 million liras. In Arizona, the standard annual fee for state residents is 14,724 dollars, roughly translating to 721,000 liras.
The emergence of these programs is backed by a rapidly growing economy. According to a report published last year, YouTube content creators alone contribute 2.2 billion pounds to the UK economy. Furthermore, a survey conducted in the US in 2024 revealed that one in three people aged between 18 and 30 wants to become an influencer.
"We Can't Teach Luck and Personality"
Knightenator, who has been sharing gaming and travel videos since 2015 and boasts over 65,000 followers on Twitch and more than 100,000 on TikTok, asserts that she will not be enrolling in this course. According to her, companies do not pay much attention to whether a content creator has a diploma or not, and the necessary information to get started can already be found for free on the internet.
However, 36-year-old content creator Aiesha Beasley from Phoenix, USA, disagrees. She believes that if such a course had been available when she started blogging in the early 2010s, she would have enrolled, thinking that a diploma would provide a clearer path to turning her hobby into a profession.
Jacky Gurr, the head of the department at Nottingham Trent, reminds us that most of the students are not actually aiming to become influencers. Graduates are producing content in agencies, organizations, or as freelancers. Gurr's warning to those dreaming of a diploma is clear: 'A large part of being a successful influencer is down to luck. We can't teach luck or personality.'
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