The Case For Removing (Almost) All Liberal Arts From College

[angus]

What are everybody's opinions on this guy's point?

He sees higher education as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself.  This is neither fortunate nor unfortunate, and he is not alone.  Many students are pursuing university degrees specifically with an eye to future employability.  

He is frustrated.  Probably he was one of those liberal arts majors who sampled various courses of study before deciding that a history degree was the easy choice.  Perhaps he spend some time as one of those "debt-laden retail workers."  One could argue that he chose a course of study for the wrong reasons and his frustration is not surprising.

It's more of a rant than a policy proposal.  He makes some insightful points, but the idea that such programs of study are not merited isn't well supported.  Moreover, the idea is easily refuted.  

[angus]

Just because you are a greedy a$$hole, doesn't mean that everyone else is, or should act that way.

But we are greedy assholes, apparently.  More importantly, we are impatient assholes.  Did you read the comments below the article?  (I ask whether you might have actually read the article, knowing by your own admission that you haven't, but let's just pretend.)  Poor spelling and poor grammar aside, they were as insightful as the article itself.

Miguel344 in Madrid writes:  "This is tipically American..."  He's right, and so too is the short-attention-span mindset that gives us the confidence to read a few sentences of an article, admit that we didn't read the whole thing because it was too long, and then go on to criticize it as if we had read it.  Too long??  Have you even tried to read the Iliad?  Or the US Constitution? 

Your post--even if nothing else does--perfectly refutes the author's premise that at least a basic liberal arts education isn't worth providing.

[angus]

And angus, I did read the article. The "tl; dr" was for people who didn't read it.

Man, I'm really off my game today.  

Or it's generational.  We used to call such things the "Reader's Digest" version or the "Cliff Notes" version.  I should realize that "tl/dr version" conveys that nowadays.

Anyway I think I agree, more or less, with your comments.  I'd only quibble with your mistake that such attitudes are only prevalent on the right.  As far as I can tell, it is the mainstream view that education is a means to an end.  It is an attitude that is firmly held in the center.  The far right and far left still have the old attitudes.  The William Buckley crowd, just as much as the Noam Chomsky crowd, appreciates the liberal arts.  But the starbucks crowd--the middle classes and pragmatist/centrists--only appreciate the ratio of dollars invested to dollars gained.  Wistfully I am saddened by that, as I have always seen education as an end in itself, but as a practical matter this was the logical consequence in the Great American Experiment.  In a time when only the landed gentry attained higher education, one could choose to study philosophy, literature, law, music, or physics, because it was interesting.  The money was irrelevant, and it was expected that one would learn all the liberal arts core, and more of one subject if it was deemed interesting.  One certainly wouldn't have been expected to make a living at any of it.  But in our free and compulsory public school mindset, and one in which we are pushing everyone to go to post-secondary institutions, we see more and more less affluent people in universities and colleges.  These are the very classes that would always think of money, precisely because they are not born with very much of it.  Eventually, the university becomes a trade school.  This phenomenon is playing out more and more worldwide as the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, and other emerging market players follow our example in this regard.

[angus]

and what I have seen is that a lot of these emerging market type students do a lot better in challenging Freshman STEM courses like Physics and Calculus. Many of them do just as well or better at them than at things like Civics and History.

This is true.  My first apartment mate in college was an Iranian who made easy As in physics, calculus, and chemistry, but struggled greatly with Norton's Anthology of English Literature.  In fact, he had a couple of F grades on his transcript and had to repeat at least one English course and at least one History course.  I believe that had more to do with a language barrier.  His English was terrible.  Funny guy, too.  He always spoke English worst when he was pulled over by cops.  He did all sorts of terrible things while driving--illegal U-turns, driving over curbs, bumping into people--but always managed to avoid getting tickets when pulled over.  He used to trade a fat black chick in our building cigarettes in exchange for sex.  One day I walked in on them and she was riding him and he was hollering and panting.  Good times.  Then he'd feel guilty about it and put his little green prayer mat out and cry and hold the Koran.  Very complex dude.  His brother was a real weirdo.  Scary guy.  Carried a big knife with him everywhere and wasn't afraid to pull it out if someone pissed him off.  He always had good weed, though.  He a mexican wife with bleach-blonde hair.  He could speak no spanish and she could speak no persian.  But I digress...

Anyway, yes we do many things right in our universities.  Folks come from all over the world to attend them.  Folks don't come from all over the world to attend our high schools.  Possibly because theirs are usually better.  That's a different issue and we shouldn't confuse it with this thread.

[angus]

things like linguistics and philosophy doesnt have to be easier subjects than biology or business.

?!

I seriously doubt that anyone thinks linguistics and philosophy are easier subjects than biology or business.  

Well, there might be somebody.  I've had business courses and philosophy courses and thought the philosophy much more challenging.  My undergraduate degree is in math and my graduate degrees are in chemistry and physics and all those majors usually make the "top ten" hardest majors list in the popular articles, but I think music is probably the hardest major to complete in four years.  Anyway, "hardest" and "easiest" is subjective.   

I disagree that somebody ought to go out of his way to make a major more difficult.  I think it should be rigorous, and committees should decide upon what to include as required, and it should be approved by the appropriate bodies, but if you set upon the task with the specific goal of making it harder then you're not helping anyone.  You scare off potential candidates and risk excluding relevant material.  FWIW, I also disagree with the current trend of creating "easier" programs for students which universities are doing, typically to enroll more students so they can get more money.  Hard and easy are not only subjective qualifiers, but they are also consequences of a set of talents and interests someone possesses.  They should not be goals of the administration.

[angus]

For your information, the writer made a follow-up post on his blog.

More ranting, just longer than the first article.  His basic frustration stems from the fact that it was so expensive for him.  It is far too expensive.  I think we all agree on that particular aspect of higher education (and medical services.)  We probably disagree on how to fix the problem, but I think we can all agree that good and serious students should not be prevented from attending university solely because of the cost of tuition.

As for his pushing the sciences, I'd agree that it's good.  I'm for more gadgets to do stuff and more people trained to invent those gadgets.  But one of the most important parts of both basic and applied science is to be able to communicate one's results to others.  Students have enough trouble already putting together coherent sentences, and if we don't require them to study English, it would be an even bigger problem.  As for history and politics and the fine arts requirements, I think that the idea is that universities are expected to churn out well-informed citizens.  If you only have the training to invent a nuclear weapon but you don't have the moral and historical perspective to understand what your weapon can do, then you aren't really a net benefit to society.

If this guy wants to push trade schools and for-profit, get-finished-in-three-years-or-less type engineering programs, then by all means, he has that right, but I really don't think he has made a coherent case for the abandonment of liberal arts requirements in universities.