In my last post, I discussed the specialization of college degrees and how they take away from a valuable liberal arts education. My main point was that now a days students are going to college for the sole purpose of finding a job, not to expand their mind and learn many new things as it has been in the past. Jenny posed a great question in her comment on my post, proposing that it may have to do with the rising cost of education. This makes sense because students are so worried about their potential debt that they are focused on the getting the best results in the fastest way possible. In the rush to get their degree and  head into the workforce, students lose their value of education. I hadn’t thought of the point Jenny brought up so I decided to do some research.

Many of you may have used College Board in high school to research colleges. According to this site, the estimated total value of a Penn State education for an in-state student is $31,720 (one semester!). Then, I found that the estimated total tuition rate for in-state students at the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is $27,200. That could just be a cheap school so I looked at one more college to compare. The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts costs $21,096 (even cheaper!) for in-state students.

And it’s beautiful too!

So what do these numbers mean? To me, they mean that the cost of a true liberal arts education is cheaper than a specialized education for a specific major, such as chemical engineering. However, this poses another question. How valuable is a liberal arts education? What can you do with it? How well do the jobs pay? The cost of tuition doesn’t matter either way if you don’t make enough after college to pay it off. An engineer from Penn State may be in $100,000 of debt but if he can make that in a year then his education was worth all the debt.

An article from pbs.org reflects on whether or not a liberal arts degree is worth the debt that students will face post-graduation. Sal Gentile, the author, begins by noting that people ridiculed the members of the Occupy Wall Street movement for their liberal arts degrees which seemed to hold no significance. Then, the author notes that the governor of Florida cut funding for anthropology because he thinks that people should be more focused on the sciences. One of the arguments is that technology can soon take over the tasks that many people with liberal arts degrees go for. The governor says, “I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state.” I disagree with that statement because it is a tough job market for anyone in this economy. If we had millions of engineers and no news anchors (a lucrative career for liberal arts majors!) then there would not be enough jobs for the engineers either. The article comes to the conclusion that it could go both ways: a liberal arts education may be worth it and it may not. There are studies that show engineers make more money but there are also studies that say it balances out in the long run.

I am not sure if anything can be done to bring students back to their childlike sense of wonder about education, but I know that the rising cost will continue to prevent this. What do you think? Do you wish that majors were not so specialized and it was acceptable to explore many different fields? Let me know your thoughts!

The pressure for students to choose a specialized major is immense in today’s society. In the past, a liberal arts education was viewed as much more valuable. We have the College of Liberal Arts here at Penn State. But when you ask a student what their major is, they don’t say they are studying in the liberal arts. A student will tell you they are studying English or Psychology. This displays our society’s tendency for specialization. Our focus of study is much more narrow than it was in the past.

Liz Coleman dedicated her TED Talk to this notion that a liberal arts education is almost nonexistent. The aspect of her Talk that I viewed as the most interesting is her idea that people are going to college today for the sole purpose of getting a job. In the past, people went to college to open their mind and simply to learn. With a liberal arts education, a student learns the core skills they need to be successful in any career. They learn problem solving skills and how to analyze an issue. As a child, when I thought of college I didn’t picture everyone already knowing their major or area of profession. Instead, I imagined a place where students took many different classes and explored all their options. I believe what I was picturing as a child is a liberal arts education. Of course a student can declare themselves ‘undecided’ until they decide which area of education is best for them. But, most colleges make it difficult to switch majors and explore options the way most students would like to. Usually, an additional semester or two will be added onto their college career resulting in more debt. Basically, it is a corrupt system that stifles a student’s natural inclination to learn. Coleman even mentions rhetoric! She believes it is the modern-day liberal arts education. The underlying theme of this Talk is a ‘call to action’. Coleman is challenging her audience, or ‘we the people’ as she likes to say, to not simply wait around for the next four years. This Talk does an excellent job of showing the current state of liberal arts and challenging people to take their fate into their own hands when it comes to their livelihood and education.

Another source with an interesting take on modern-day liberal arts comes from The Huffington Post. This article further solidifies Liz Coleman’s notion that liberal arts is a dying breed. Justin Pope uses the words “career-focused students” which is exactly what Coleman was referring to when she stated that students today are only worried about finding a job. Pope states that only 130 colleges today meet the requirements for a true liberal arts institution. He says, “Most that fell off the list remained in business, but had shifted toward a pre-professional curriculum.” To me, that is a cop out because it goes against the initial mission and purpose of the college. If you set out to provide students with a liberal arts education, that is exactly what you should do. I understand that the market for it is dwindling but that is their responsibility as an institution to find a way to make liberal arts appealing. If the colleges them self are giving up, it gives students even more reason to not appreciate the basis of knowledge and learning. Towards the end of the article Pope interviews a Communications major who says that a school must offer more than strong academics in order to attract students. I agree with his statement, however academics is the most important. A student may be talented in various aspects, but if they don’t have an education to fall back on they have nothing. An education is the one thing in this world that no one can take away from you.