How to make the rate of return on higher education negative

They’re signing up as we speak for a two-year degree course in heavy metal music (believed to be the first of its kind), which begins in September in a college in Nottingham.

…The degree organisers are loftily talking up the course by using terms such as “culture” and “context”. They point out that you can study music at Oxford, Cambridge or any other university, but that this “genre” degree is unique.

“Heavy metal is an extremely technical genre of music and its study is a rising academic theme,” they say. Metal is “seriously studied in conservatoires in Helsinki”, has classical music roots, and leading axe-men such as Joe Satriani incorporate the works of Paganini in their oeuvre.

Wow, Paganini.  Get this:

“It’s a degree, so it will be academically rigorous,” said Mr Maloy [the sequence designer].

And why Nottingham?:

Not only was Earache Records, a heavy metal-focused record label, founded in the city, but additionally, the region’s Download Festival appeals to over 75,000 rock and metal fans on an annual basis.

The course fees are £5,750 a year.  Here is a bit more information.