<p>thats too bad. I would think a proponent of the pure liberal arts major would have offered solid evidence why its still relevant.</p>
<p>BTW, I should note I don’t think the liberal arts are irrelevant, not do I think an appreciation of the arts and humanities should be limited to the “elite” whatever that means. Heck, I think life would be a lot less interesting without the humanities.</p>
<p>With that said, the “liberal arts” as is stands largely encourages analysis and interpretation–which is great, but in my opinion, is insufficient. Most of the value-added work in the world comes from creation–which means creative content, and that can come in a number of forms–ranging from artistic products to software to the production of new synthetic material. </p>
<p>This is a gross simplification, but if I have to make a distinction between the liberal arts vs. vocational training, it’s that the latter is more active whereas the former is passive. Again, nothing wrong with synthesizing material in an analytical way, but most work involves somehow “doing something” with that material–whether it’s coming up with a set of policy recommendations, or what not. Again, much of the humanities don’t encourage that sort of “post-analysis” thinking, or, at the very least, is not an integral part of liberal arts education. On the other hand, good engineering programs do encourage–requires–both types of thinking. Check out any undergrad design project. </p>
<p>Now, are pure liberal arts degrees useless? Probably not. The type of thinking/analysis is still highly useful. With that said, I think pure liberal arts degrees are NOT very useful for the type of kid who needs a bit of hand-holding. Kids from Williams, or Amherst or Yale do well with that English degree the lack of post-analytical type training because they’re (generally) bright enough to automatically adopt to new situations. Are there exceptions? Of course…but in general, they’d do well anyway. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a kid that needs more rote instruction to complete an assignment would not (generally) be well served with a folk and myth (substitute some other field) degree. They wouldn’t know what to do with that information/knowledge in a different context. I don’t think it’s elitist to that we’re doing those kids a big disservice by encouraging them to take a degree with no foreseeable practical application in the future, because chances are, very few will become scholars in their respective fields. It’s definitely not worth the 35-40k tuition at some middling LAC. </p>
<p>With all that said, I’d actually like to see a gradual shift in curriculum at even the great LACs as well. I think we can do a much better job at creating a curriculum that encourages more post-analytic thinking.</p>
<p>collegebound_guy is absolutely right. Nobody is saying that liberal arts degrees are pointless, but as others have pointed out, facts are facts. Many liberal arts degrees are not good investments anymore. Do liberal arts degrees add value to society? Absolutely. That being said, many liberal arts degrees do not prepare graduates for professional jobs. Some people on this thread can mock science and engineering majors all they want, but the truth is that these degrees prepare graduates for professional jobs upon graduation. As an engineer, I resent some of the implications that engineers and science majors do not enjoy life and that liberal arts majors are better prepared to be managers. This is simply not true.</p>
<p>Just because someone points out facts doesn’t make them elitest either.</p>
<p>Sorry to tell you, liberal art is pointless outside ivy league. The craze for liberal art studies in American in fact serves to abstruse its elitist root and economic unsustainability.<br>
The whole idea of liberal art studies as a part of college curriculum for ALL was created shortly after the WW2 with the returning of American GIs who used their GI bills to fund their education. With the desire to achieve, to be better than their parents who didn’t read Milton, these American GIs turned to the “great books” for their comforts. Whether they succeeded in using these “great ideas,” “strong analytic skills” to better the world, I’m not here to judge. But their ability in undertaking such extravagant training in liberal arts was precisely because their service during the World War 2, which laid for them the economic and social basis to pursue studies without worrying about room and board.
The demand of these American GIs singularly created for Americans the expansion of liberal art programs outside the “ivy league.” State universities such as U of California, U of Michigan pioneered in teaching of liberal arts outside the ivy walls of Yale and Harvard.
Now, however, the situation has changed. Liberal art studies have been in steady decline ever since the 70s, corresponding with a decreasing interests and demand in liberal arts as a discipline. You can go read the statistics about the decline of the whole HUMANITIES after the 70s. Today, we have WAYYY more Ph.Ds, scientists than we could possibly use. They have truly became the fringe elements in today’s society, burying their heads in a social utopia aka university, waiting for that ever-elusive employment opportunity which their extensive training in liberal arts has done nothing.
In reality, liberal arts provides little to no usable skills for job applicants. It is but a demonstration that the applicant can actually finish a college degree. In a typical state college or even, ivy league, liberal arts professors construct for its students the illusions of being a ‘scholar.’ Sorry to tell you, less than 5 percent of these students will go on to grad school, out of which only 2 percent will succeed in attending, and about .5 percent will actually finish, out of which then only .25 percent will find a job relevant to his studies, and a tiny tiny percentage out of that will actually find a tenure employment in a university. Even with such a disillusioning prospect, college professors today and college students still demand for liberal arts education that will train its students to be the ‘future scholar.’ Professors are way too busy in copying themselves; as a result, students are only to be taught about academic liberal arts, instead of liberal arts which should be useful to society.
What then, is a liberal art that is useful to society? It is disciplines such as mechanical engineering or premed with a side humanities curriculum which wonderfully place its students in a position that will enable them to undertake whatever studies they want to pursue, and provide them with rudimentary informations about history and philosophy.
Students DO NOT need extensive training in humanities, and employers DO NOT want its employee to be a specialist of subaltern studies with a side concentration on deconstructive historiography from so and so state school. Unless you want to be like me, to be a teacher or professor, I highly recommend you not to pursue humanities and avoid its “coolness” at all cost.
The dying of the liberal art maybe is a good thing. It is what economist will later term “creative destruction,” through which useless programs will be surely eliminated, for better or worse.</p>
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It is predictive. You have not rebutted that crucial point. The military uses IQ to the hilt in order to sort and assign people positions.</p>
<p>Like a moth to flame … but some inanities require a response.</p>
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<p>Say what? I seem to recall the Land Grant Colleges were created by Lincoln in the 1860s, precisely to democratize both liberal and practical education.</p>
<p>Jefferson founded UVa precisely for that same democratization purpose: so the non-elite “should be rendered *by liberal education *worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and . . . they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance.”</p>
<p>In fact, the traditional elitist knock on Land Grants is that they are “cow colleges”; it is an interesting strain of elitism where the cow college majors declare that the liberal arts are worthless or only useful to the elites from Pomona or Williams or what have you.</p>
<p>Point being that Jefferson saw the value of liberal arts education for a purpose no less sacred than maintaining the flame of democracy via an educated populace.</p>
<p>For a group so professed to be wed to facts, the repeated claims of the “fact” that liberal arts educations do not lead to fulfilling careers is in fact nothing more than ignorant opinion: the fact is liberal arts grads do just fine, assuming personal initiative.</p>
<p>If a specialized undergrad tech degree is something someone wants, great; but why the hostility to others choosing broader fields of study?</p>
<p>The death of liberal arts education as we know it is inevitable. The rebirth of liberal arts education as a new arena of studies well suited for the economic, political, and social advancements of the less privileged is just as equally inevitable. The elitist academia which feeds liberal arts education is in constant decline ever since 70s. With the ever increasing amount of adjuncts and unemployed Ph.Ds, your so-called liberal arts education today reflects a medieval castle-in-the-sky constructed by the masses’ fetishism on an education system which treats its constituents like share croppers. </p>
<p>@cluelessdad
Land grant colleges were created almost uniformly to fit the needs of American agriculture, mechanical arts, and other practical subjects which America desperately needed after Civil War. The imitation of a full liberal art curriculum did not start after WW2, when the GIs filled the classrooms with an insatiable demand for education “just as the ivies.” Such aping of ivy league liberal arts curriculum is exactly what I’m arguing against. State universities and less advantaged students DO NOT need to APE the ivy league style education to be successful. They further DO NOT need to waste their parents’ precious money on pointless education in subjects such as western cannons to perpetuate their illusions of grandeur. </p>
<p>The education of nonelites in so-called non-ivy league universities today is an illusion which has no end. It perpetuates the stereotype that an education is for its own sake, without asking the question why educates and who are being educated. What it creates instead is a quasi-educated work force which does not have necessary practical knowledge and advantages to compete with the graduates from ivy league universities. A liberal art graduate from so and so university faces severe disadvantage when competes with a similar graduate from an elite university in this job market. Since both candidate fails to demonstrate specific working knowledge, they must be educated after their entrance into the workforce, either in terms of internship, or extensive training. The liberal arts education in either case does not provide necessary working knowledge immediately pertaining to a certain job or profession. However, the candidate from an elite institution will be infinitely more advantageous than the candidate from a state university, since he will not only have superior networks, but also a sense of recognitions from his perspective employers. This is the reason why investment banking firms staff their analysts with people from NYU, Columbia, Yale, Harvard instead of SUNY and Michigan State. </p>
<p>Practical sciences such as engineering dismantle the notion that one needs to go to ivy league to receive a premium education. This is precisely the effect of the democratization which was brought by our ever increasing economic productivity. In fact, a graduate from Penn State’s engineering department is held in more esteem than an engineering graduate from Harvard. He has more economic and political autonomy than the his English major friend,who, after graduation from Penn State, will either be a stinky administrator or pursue a Master or JD which will then shackle him with more years of school and an atrocious amount of student debt. </p>
<p>However, unlike practical sciences, liberal arts does not give its students ANY advantages to compete with their counterparts in ivy leagues. Far away from Jefferson’s vision of a “educated citizenry,”—by which he meant the educated white anglo protestant citizenry and by which he wrote in his Virginia paper that he was going to deport ALL colored people from U.S---- today’s liberal arts education creates a gigantic, immovable slumbering class that quite on the contrary conforms to EVERY rule this unjust education institution perpetuates. </p>
<p>The students of liberal arts are ever silenced by their lack of economic maneuverability. Their dream of education after their graduation becomes a vampire which sucks their blood and sweat in the form of student loan. The university’s promise is broken. Education does not equip oneself with necessary skills for employment; today, students of liberal arts blind themselves with a collegiate liberal arts environment that feeds on their happiness to study useless subjects like a fake Victorian 19th century aesthete. But who is there after their graduation from college? Who will be responsible for their moving back with their parents? Like a snobbish American capitalist, we can only answer with the utmost cruelty: "it is your own damn fault, we’ve given you a broad range of skills. " </p>
<p>Ironic</p>
<p>Cluelessdad,</p>
<p>Nice appeal to history, but here are my issues once again. </p>
<p>Liberal arts educations can lead to fulfilling careers. No one really claims otherwise. We just CANNOT mislead prospective students who believe they can major in liberal arts at a non-elite school and be in a great position on the job market. That just isn’t the case, and it won’t be, even in the future, as many posters have so graciously already pointed out. You can bleat out all the platitudes about the value of a liberal arts education for all its worth, but in the end, it’s up to the employers to determine whether these people are worth employing. And a lot of them aren’t worth employing right now. Things have changed, and students need to realize this. The only argument you can make against this FACT is that “oh these people don’t have personal initiative”. </p>
<p>If it wasn’t for the “everyone go to college” mentality that pervades American society, we wouldn’t have this problem of too many liberal arts majors. </p>
<p>I just don’t think liberal arts majors (or business majors and a few other majors as well) should be subsidized by the Government on a need-only basis. That’s where my hostility lies, non-discriminatory financial aid policies, which are funded by federal dollars. </p>
<p>Look a lot of people choose to major in the liberal arts not because they are passionate about a subject, but because they don’t know what else to study, and they need a college degree. Most people with lower IQs simply aren’t interested in pouring over Voltaire or writing essays regarding Leviathan. The problem is that society is caught up in the “college uber alles” mindset so people who really don’t want to be studying history find themselves doing so because that’s something they are marginally interested in and it’s much easier than a STEM degree. Seriously, many students don’t find themselves in a “I love liberal arts mode” but rather a “I need a degree and this LA subject is not too hard mode”. </p>
<p>Liberal arts can be dumbed down much more than a STEM major can be. Walk into a liberal arts class at your local-state school and you’ll find out what level of liberal arts is really being taught in the classroom. Look over a few papers, and you’ll see that 75% of the kids, just don’t get it, but will still get passing grades nonetheless, because you can’t fail everyone, right? </p>
<p>Don’t get me started on what happens to the “ethnic and gender studies” majors, who probably end up subtracting value from society by propagating value-transference policies which only serve to STEAL the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens. </p>
<p>Jefferson is rolling in his grave.</p>
<p>cluelessdad, I don’t understand why you keep trying to push against the tide. If liberal arts majors, like you said do just fine, then why is liberal arts dying in America? Its basic common sense: There is less demand for it and colleges are catering to it. Like I and others said, no one is saying a pure liberal arts education is stupid or bad, its just outdated today. No one is saying that every american student should pursue a tech degree; there are plenty of non-liberal, non-tech degrees out there, its just that we should stop encouraging students to study pure liberal arts where they gather round a professor and study dead languages because those degrees are not as useful as they used to be.</p>
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<p>I highly agree with this statement. Many kids today don’t really know what a good work ethic is. Its a shame, and it doesn’t bode well for our future economic state.</p>
<p>Also, like ME 76 said, I also find it distateful and ignorant that a lot of liberal arts proponents look down on non-liberal arts majors as having “no life” or “lifeless”, “one dimensional”, etc. Seems like a thinly veiled attack against the “nerd”. The truth is, tech majors and non-LA majors have a life outside their coursework and have plenty of knowledge outside their specialty. Why do you think so many colleges require humanities, language, or social science courses in their tech degree programs? And now that colleges are starting to make those requirements more stringent, you’re finding engineers/accountants/any non liberal arts people with specific skills but also well rounded mentality.</p>
<p>The line between humanities and technical degrees has blurred a lot and will continue to do so as colleges continue to merge technical programs and liberal arts programs together.</p>
<p>@Mr Payne, navyarf et al.</p>
<p>Actually, I think it’s a bigger educational issue that’s beyond the ‘problem’ of the liberal arts major; the roots of the problem are planted at the secondary school level. </p>
<p>I’ve always preferred the German gymnasium system. Those who are interested/suited for academia, or the professions should continue with a rigorous college prep curriculum. Those who are more suited for vocational occupations should be trained for that. We’ll save a lot of money in the long run, and avoid the “You Can Lead a Horse to Water but You Can’t Make Him Drink” problem that we have in public schools.</p>
<p>BTW…none of us are arguing that tech degrees are the be-all-end-all. An engineering degree is no guarantee ticket to financial stability or a stress-free professional life. In certain fields, you’re setting yourself up to be a life-long learner. Things change so quickly that if you don’t keep up, you’re out.</p>
<p>why is everyone on here going crazy about this? Just let people study whatever they want and if they fail, that’s their problem. Just let it be.
navy, what does it matter if some low IQ kid wants to study liberal arts? Just let him/her do whatever he/she wants to do. And all this about government funding etc.etc. isn’t really gonna have a big effect on your life</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Do you realize the immense subsidies that governments pour into state universities? Tax payers would like a return on their investment (subsidizing the tuition of a college student). Someone with a fairly average IQ has no place studying an impractical subjects that will yield no productive economic gains for society. What our taxpayer dollars fund is, in fact, a big deal. I don’t feel comfortable paying taxes to fund a pothead studying history with a C average at Podunk State University, and this is coming from someone who attends one of those “elite” liberal arts colleges that keep coming up in this argument.</p>
<p>No i get that but i’m just talking about the general argument here. No need for people to be bashing on other people’s (people on here) majors and what others with initiative want to study. My point basically was, if he feels so danm strong about it, quit your cyberbit ching and do something…</p>
<p>But even to your point, this is America, no? Shouldn’t everyone get a fair chance? Not necessarily the pothead studying history but what about those who just happened to have a low IQ but genuinely want to try?</p>
<p>^ Well, in some people’s world on here, the lazy pot head who happens to have a 120/130 IQ is ALWAYS going to do better than the person with 100 IQ who works his/her butt off. Because, of course, that always happens in the real world :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^ No one here has made that argument. The primary contention revolves around the fact that liberal arts majors at the most elite colleges and universities will be in a far better position post-graduation because of their natural intelligence, socio-economic class (often), access to influential networks, etc. Their liberal arts major counterparts at massive public universities and low-ranked private universities do not enjoy these advantages often; these students would be better served with a combination of the liberal arts and technical/operational skills that would make them attractive candidates in the labor market.</p>
<p>Oh, there you go with those well reasoned arguments.</p>
<p>My point that some of the posters have been conveniently sidestepping is that people with IQ 100~ are not likely to be genuinely interested in the liberal arts nor likely to be capable of handling a traditional and rigorous liberal arts curriculum. These people usually are the types of people who don’t like to read books. In a traditional liberal arts program, you read a lot of books. </p>
<p>What passes for a “liberal arts education” these days is pathetic, even at decent state schools. I think the liberal arts are important and should be a part of every students education. STEM majors would also benefit from a healthy dose of ethics and morality. Hell, I’d even prefer kids stay 5 years in college, if it means that they’d complete a stellar core curriculum. The standards need to be set higher. </p>
<p>I’m sure there are a few people with lower IQ that are truly passionate about the subject, just as there are people with little athletic talent that are passionate about basketball. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t vainly subsidize their pursuits. At some point, the market has to play its role. A lot of kids have wanted to be professional athletes at some point in their lives, but most of them realize that they probably won’t make it no matter how hard they try, because they don’t have sufficient athletic ability, and exit the market. How would you feel if your tax dollars went to mediocre athletes trying to become pro? The problem with education is that students don’t see the full cost of their decisions (with federal aid and state-tuition) thus leading them to make poor decisions about their future. </p>
<p>Can someone with an IQ of 100~ do better than a pothead with a IQ of 130~. YES! I believe it can happen, though I don’t think it’s likely. </p>
<p>And some posters have taken the attitude of “why do you care so much about their lives? Let them do what they want”. I care because I fear that the majority of these people who take on mountains of debt to finance a liberal arts education at a non-elite school will find themselves with a bad job, or no job, no matter how much “personal initiative” they have. In the end, they are responsible for their actions, but I’m afraid that these grads (seeing as how liberal academia is) will, like most liberals, NOT take personal responsibility for their actions and blame it on someone else.</p>
<p>First of all, even with an ivy league liberal arts degree, I’d still laugh at you for choosing a subject void of employment possibility. Your ivy liberal arts degree doesn’t translate to a higher intelligence, it is merely a pathetic demonstration that you can excel in writing 2 10-20 pages paper a course and afford 40000 a year to do it. </p>
<p>It is not about IQ, it is about the competitive advantage of a state school liberal art degree versus an ivy league liberal arts degree. The latter is going to be infinitely more advantageous than the former. And I think the reason why there are so many people shouting “let’s study liberal arts!” is because those people are manipulated, brainwashed, indoctrinated ivy league ideologues who desperately want everybody to ape an ivy league liberal arts curriculum. Those people blatantly ignore the sheer amount of WASTE they are producing for a society saturated with college degrees. </p>
<p>I’m a hardcore liberal! The question of IQ is highly debatable, since it does not ask how much advantage a 130 has received in the course of his childhood compared to a 90. </p>
<p>But the IQ questions aside, I don’t give a damn about how “suitable” a person is towards the study of liberal arts, because I happen to believe that everybody can study liberal arts and excel in it if you put enough efforts. What my problem with liberal arts curriculum today is that it does not provide for its students necessary skills to COMPETE with those graduated from Ivy leagues; as a result, we have literally a caste system in American academia with the ivy league students receive much better education than the REST of the crowd. </p>
<p>Changes can be easily made to renovate the university’s curriculum: eliminate discipline boundaries within humanities, broaden the scope of liberal arts to include mathmatics and sciences, and make professional training and placement programs mandatory.</p>
<p>I think pharmakeus01 hit the nail on the head about professional training and placement programs. This is more how engineering programs are set up. You do not have to go to a top 5 engineering school to get good job offers or to succeed in engineering. Most engineering programs are structured to combine course work with industrial experience through co-ops or internships.</p>
<p>As an engineer, I can tell you that engineering programs require a lot of specific courses to graduate. Engineers are required to take many more courses in their specific area than most liberal arts graduates (at least all the liberal arts graduates that I know). All of these courses provide students with technical skills that companies value. When you graduate with an engineering degree, you posess the necessary tools to obtain a professional job and to succeed at it and companies clearly recognize this. It is no secret that at most universities, the college of engineering has higher job placement rates than practically any other college. </p>
<p>In my opinion, your average liberal arts degree does not provide any focused skills that can lead directly to a professional job. I think liberal arts degrees are very important but from an investment standpoint, they do not compare to a technical degree. As others have said, they do not adequately prepare graduates for the job market as technical degrees do. Now before someone calls me elitest, I will reiterate that I think liberal arts degrees are valuable and necessary to society. I just don’t think I would suggest someone rack up huge student loans to obtain a Russian literature degree from your average school.</p>
<p>I think another difference with engineering is the fact that ABET accreditation standards are set at a fairly high level.</p>