“What does the trend away from liberal arts tell us about America?” …
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/liberal-arts-a-lost-cause.html
“We are drifting towards turning college into a trade school…and that was not the original purpose of education”. I love that idea. I absolutely think things need to grow and evolve and keep up with modern needs. And the article goes on to talk about anJeffersonian ideal in education- and he envisioned/wanted a nations of small farmers (he was not a fan of industry and ardently hoped US would stay away from too much of it…oops) so clearly we have many different types of needs. But there is still room for an “old fashioned” education too
I’m not a believer is getting a pre-professional undergraduate degree. How does one know 5-6 years before one graduates what the “hot” field will be? I bet a lot of kids 5-6 years ago bet on petroleum engineering and with the drop in the prices of oil recently probably not a lot of hiring right now in that field. What is going to be the “hot” field 5-6 years from now? Any guesses?
I think every student should pursue a major that is of interest to him and for which he has an aptitude. There really is something for everyone. The idea of shoehorning a humanities kid into an econ box because “that is where the jobs are” is ludicrous and won’t make for a very worthwhile life. Be realistic about finances and potential earnings, and don’t go into massive debt, but do pursue what you enjoy.
Here are parts of the response:
Regarding the first sentence quoted above, remember that the expansion of state universities in the 1950s to 1970s was in part driven by the states’ desire to have a more educated population to generate more economic activity – and that education included the more overtly pre-professional subjects (engineering, business, agriculture and natural resources, etc.) that state universities are often seen as strong schools for to this day.
However, lots of college students do study the liberal arts subjects (probably about 35-40% of bachelor’s degrees overall are in liberal arts majors these days), just not necessarily at liberal arts colleges. It is true that liberal arts majors are more common relative to overtly pre-professional majors at more selective schools (though some liberal arts majors are commonly chosen for pre-professional reasons, like economics, applied math, statistics, biology as pre-med, political science as pre-law, etc.).
A traditional liberal arts education is a luxury and always has been. It’s just through the evolution of including nursing schools, teacher education, business education and other "majors’ into what was a traditional liberal arts education did the definition of what constituted a college education change.
@momofthreeboys You might be right and how sad. What student would not take great value from this:
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present”.
Is there no room for this education between designing computer games?
I submit that it’s a necessity for a well-run democracy in a complex, interconnected world with prudent and far-reaching decision-making at a premium. A liberal arts education promotes critical and analytical thinking, not to mention historical understanding, which would not be as necessary today if the high schools were doing the same job (which, in the majority, they are not).
Sure it’s. A luxury. But … All of life is balancing the nurture of the soul against the need to eat, be clothed, have shelter. Why would college, which ought to help us prepare for that lifelong struggle be different?
Make the engineers take humanities and make the history majors know something about HVAC - a person that can’t. Wrench on something is no more complete than a monoglot.
I didn’t realize that the millions of students studying liberal arts disciplines at universities and community colleges don’t count as liberal arts students.
I guess small LACs that only the offspring of wealthy parents can afford are dying, but I wouldn’t conflate that with the entire concept of modern liberal arts. If you want to major in math you can do that pretty much anywhere.
Here’s another log for this fire, coming from a slightly different perspective.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/why-college-kids-are-avoiding-the-study-of-literature/
another bogus article, IMO. There is absolutely zero data to show that the study of liberal arts is declining – just a decline in the number of LACs.
The fact is not that 100 LAC’s closed, but that they broadened their curriculum to include (gasp) vocatoinal programs. So they sill teach liberal arts, but they also offer some other electives.
But maybe, just maybe, its that their cost has gotten to be so exhoribitant, that one can go study the liberal arts at the instate Uni for less than half price. (Yeah, sure, the instate Uni might not have riding stables, but seriously, when does studying the liberal arts includes courses in horseback riding?)
For example, I looked up on Cal State Uni at random and it had more English majors last year than Engineering majors. Heck, by my quick math, approx. half of the grads (several thousand, btw) from that Cal State majored in the what is considered the liberal arts. But do they not count bcos they can’t afford a LAC?
btw: anyone find it kind of ironic that the author is a Comm professor (which is generally a vocational major?)
^ That article read like a Tolstoy novel!! However, he makes a good point about the skills that can be gleaned by students actually understanding the author’s voice.
As a frequent responder backing the value of a liberal arts education and having just gone through my first kid’s college search, I will say that many universities big and small have adopted curricula which have general education guidelines in an attempt to get students of all disciplines to take a minimum core. Some are obviously more successful than others.
Liberal Arts isn’t declining, just changing. I’m in a pre-professional major (urban planning), and the Liberal Arts are crucial. History is a critical part of the field. If you are going to babble on about rerouting transit lines in San Francisco, you really ought to know how those lines got to be in their current form. You also need to know how your predecessors did things. That means studying all sorts of stuff, like the New York City grid system, how Washington DC was constructed, how Paris formed the foundation of modern Western European and American urban planning, how London built a revolutionary sewer system, how Ancient China arranged orderly cities, how Tenochtitlan was built and functioned, how the Ancient Greeks arranged cities around social needs, how the Romans built aqueducts that stood the test of time, and so much more. You can’t build a good plan if you haven’t looked into how previous plans functioned in theory and practice. Urban planners also really need to study art, architecture, and interior design. These subjects teach you what spaces people are entranced by and feel comfortable in, which is a good skill when looking through proposed plans government buildings. On a similar note, you also need to know a fair amount of sociology. Have to know a few things about communities to understand their living spaces, after all. In terms of literature, it is a really good idea for urban planners to read Charles Dickens. Nobody gives you a feel for how people interact with and react to a city quite like he did. He made London breathe in a manner that illuminates spacial and community relationships more than lecturing about them could. I think a lot of professional degrees are like that, because a lot of todays careers are extremely social. Colleges have responded to that, and the Liberal Arts are quite prominent.
Many of us would know this, @Spaceship , (i.e., the importance of that knowledge base you delineate), but I’m relieved to see that the curriculum has been available, and that, further, you apparently have sufficient curiosity and understanding to do optional reading as well. Good for you. Thank you for the information.
It may be more of a luxury for the individual, but a necessity for well-running society. Some of the benefits are external to the individual, which may be why some government subsidy of education (including the liberal arts) is justifiable to some or many people. But that also means that, as the student’s cost of education increases, the external benefits are more likely to be lost as students are forced to focus on whether they can afford the education and be able to pay back the student loans.
I with epiph on this; indeed, that is why I’m a BIG fan of colleges with a true Core curriculum (more than the standard 6 courses outside your field or major).
And not sure it has to necessarily increase the education costs, ucb. Sure, an engineering & architecture programs are rather full, with no room for liberal art-type electives. But, business majors can easily add non-Econ courses. Or, even BSN programs have plenty of room for liberal arts courses.
Technically, aren’t most Wharton grads earning a BS in Econ?
Liberal arts is not the cause of increased education costs. But the increased education costs cause students to devalue subjects of study (whether as their majors, or out-of-major electives) that they do not believe will help them pay off their student loans after graduation.
It does appear that large core curricula which require rigorous courses (as opposed to “rocks for jocks” type of courses) are not that popular among students choosing colleges. Students may avoid such colleges since they may not want to have to take rigorous courses outside their majors. Indeed, we see this on the college admission section when, even in high school, students are asking if it is ok to stop taking foreign language at level 2, or skip precalculus or physics. In college, it is common to see students looking for “easy A” courses for their general education requirements, whether it be engineering or science majors looking for the easiest humanities or social studies courses, or humanities or social studies majors taking “rocks for jocks” type of courses (and all of them choosing to take those general education courses passed / not-passed).
The curriculum for that major looks a lot more like that of a business major than a typical liberal arts economics major.
One great contributor, IMO, to the perceived rising tendency to question a liberal arts major selection is the phenomenon of a steady increase in requirements for certification and licensing.
Teaching, which is probably the easiest example, is a job that you cannot enter with a liberal arts degree. If that’s all you have, you can’t be hired.
It doesn’t stop there, though, by any means. Accounting has always been a narrow field with little room for electives. But currently, most state CPA boards require an extra thirty credit hours to either sit for the CPA exam or to become licensed. Some cpa firms used to have some special programs to train bright liberal arts recruits (with math literacy) to become cpas, but I’m not sure those exist anymore.
The ABET certified engineering programs, imo, don’t leave a lot of room for humanities courses.
The professional schools of law, medicine, and business typically allow a lot of leeway in their admissions requirements, and are generally completely compatible with a liberal arts degree program. But those schools tend to be focused exclusively on the upper tier of performers from undergrad. For those students who don’t see professional school in their future, their undergraduate choices need to be somewhat more focused in today’s environment.
“Teaching, which is probably the easiest example, is a job that you cannot enter with a liberal arts degree. If that’s all you have, you can’t be hired.”
One can teach at a private school without being certified. One can also teach at a college or uni without being certified.