The Land Economy Department is to change the name of its BA in Land Economy to ‘Environment, Law, and Economics’ from October 2027, despite students condemning the new title as “not very accurate”.

While current students will still graduate with the degree title ‘Land Economy,’ from October 2027 all students matriculating onto the course will have the new name on their degree certificates. The content and structure of the degree will remain identical.

The new name emphasises the multi-faceted nature of the course, capturing “the three key components of the Land Economy undergraduate degree” according to the department which noted the three topics had previously been used as a ‘subtitle’ for the BA.

The Department told Varsity the change was motivated by a desire to have “a new title that offered a better summary of the degree to anyone who was uninitiated with the Department’s research and teaching.”

In selecting the new title, the Department consulted students and staff, as well as alumni bodies and other Cambridge departments. All students on the tripos were sent a survey on ‘changing the name of the BA in Land Economy’.

The name change has since been approved by the University’s General Board.

Varsity spoke to multiple Land Economy students who were all in agreement that the present name posed issues and was “outdated,” but were critical of the new ‘Environment, Law, and Economics’ title chosen.

Dan, a third-year Land Economy student at Pembroke, told Varsity, “while I am glad it is changing names, everyone is really annoyed they are putting environment first as it doesn’t represent the majority of the degree.”

The complex nature of the degree left multiple students feeling that the new name didn’t reflect the course’s wide-ranging contents.

A third-year student at St Johns, argued the new title “still struggles to capture the nature of the degree,” highlighting the lack of mention of one of the course’s main topics, real estate.

Another third-year student criticised the title for misleadingly describing the tripos as seemingly a combination of the three mentioned topics.

Rather than being a combination of traditional degrees, she emphasised the “piecemeal” nature of the course that combines “a really wide variety of things but they’re uber-specific.”

While not necessarily accurate, students reflected that “having buzz words like ‘Environment’ might mean more people come across the course”. They pointed out how it is difficult for students to find out about the course unless specifically researching Cambridge, as it isn’t offered anywhere else, and most schools don’t know about it.

The Land Economy BA initially developed out of ‘Estate Management’ courses aimed at landlords in the early 20th century, and the current tripos was established in 1961.

In response to student criticisms, the Land Economy Department told Varsity:

“The name encapsulates the core areas covered in the degree – environment refers not only to the natural environment but also to the built and urban environments which are a central part of our work. This has been the tagline explaining our degree for a number of years as it is the best explanation of its content.”