who would support dropping liberal arts degrees to help colleges?

[Cecilie1200]

I think that colleges need to make their own decision what programs to offer and what programs not to offer.

As for the policy in general, I think it's foolish to eliminate such degrees. The whole point of colleges and university is to learn. Are you going to college to learn or are you going to college for a piece of paper and for money?

A good point. If you cannot go to college to get an old-fashioned, well-rounded, wide-ranging education in classic topics, who needs colleges at all? Trade schools for everyone would do just fine.

 

[Diuretic]

Why not? Why do you despite self made men and women who educated themselves?

What's the point of paying thousands of dollars for an education when you can learn the same things by simply going to the library and reading books? When you can experiment for yourself? Or when you can apprentice yourself to a master to learn that way much cheaper?

Do you really believe that?

Why shouldn't I? The greatest men in history never had formal education. They taught themselves. Why do you think it's so different now?

Hmmm, don't know if I really agree with that, but to be fair it's a fairly broad statement. I think that most of the greatest people in history had a good formal education. But then we get into what's "great" don't we?

 

[eagleseven]

I have been told that liberal arts degrees are increasing in their popularity with employers lately. Certainly my husband's joint degrees in journalism and creative writing have been helpful with a wide variety of jobs over the years.

Problem:

Unemployed Recent Grads > Employed Recent Grads

For BA English students buried in student loans, hope of a decent-paying jobs in 5 years does little to eliminate their current poverty and compounding debt.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I have been told that liberal arts degrees are increasing in their popularity with employers lately. Certainly my husband's joint degrees in journalism and creative writing have been helpful with a wide variety of jobs over the years.

Problem:

Unemployed Recent Grads > Employed Recent Grads

For BA English students buried in student loans, hope of a decent-paying jobs in 5 years does little to eliminate their current poverty and compounding debt.

I think that's a decision for the student to make when he decides his major and life path, not for the college to make by not offering those courses and degrees, don't you?

 

[eagleseven]

I have been told that liberal arts degrees are increasing in their popularity with employers lately. Certainly my husband's joint degrees in journalism and creative writing have been helpful with a wide variety of jobs over the years.

Problem:

Unemployed Recent Grads > Employed Recent Grads

For BA English students buried in student loans, hope of a decent-paying jobs in 5 years does little to eliminate their current poverty and compounding debt.

I think that's a decision for the student to make when he decides his major and life path, not for the college to make by not offering those courses and degrees, don't you?

I'm not advocating for forcing institutions to do anything.

 

[Madeline]

I am.

Force some to close, others to shut down departments with nonexistant career paths, and still others to help guide students to a viable employment opportunity.

You can leave a few navel-gazing or buggy whip manufacturing departments open. But only a few, and they have to have great big yellow caution signs on their entrances.

News flash: most students go to college to get a decent job. Colleges are not delivering on that inducement.

 

[Diuretic]

I am.

Force some to close, others to shut down departments with nonexistant career paths, and still others to help guide students to a viable employment opportunity.

You can leave a few navel-gazing or buggy whip manufacturing departments open. But only a few, and they have to have great big yellow caution signs on their entrances.

News flash: most students go to college to get a decent job. Colleges are not delivering on that inducement.

That would make higher learning simply a vocational education process. Surely a society needs universities to do more than that. I think society should be prepared to invest in universities to be more than vocational colleges.

 

[Madeline]

I am.

Force some to close, others to shut down departments with nonexistant career paths, and still others to help guide students to a viable employment opportunity.

You can leave a few navel-gazing or buggy whip manufacturing departments open. But only a few, and they have to have great big yellow caution signs on their entrances.

News flash: most students go to college to get a decent job. Colleges are not delivering on that inducement.

That would make higher learning simply a vocational education process. Surely a society needs universities to do more than that. I think society should be prepared to invest in universities to be more than vocational colleges.

I don't agree that college students with majors that will lead to employment are any less able to think critically or appreciate the arts, etc. than those with degree paths they can never hope to use. But even if I concede this, how is it fair for society to extract this elusive something-something from its young by betraying promises of employablity in order to induce them to attend college?

Whatever this "something" is that colleges and universities "should" produce apart from an educated and employable work force, if we really want/need it...won't someone step forward to buy it/donate it/fund it?

 

[antagon]

Why not? Why do you despite self made men and women who educated themselves?

What's the point of paying thousands of dollars for an education when you can learn the same things by simply going to the library and reading books? When you can experiment for yourself? Or when you can apprentice yourself to a master to learn that way much cheaper?

Nothing stops people from pursuing knowledge in your nebulous paradigm. I think that that should be encouraged, particularly where people are acquiring information which has little or no real application.

Where formal higher education shines, is that it tailors info to the demands of industry, and focuses students on the problems which society needs solved. further, a formal degree is a certification, not only that you've been subjected to the information which the degree entails, but that you were able to achieve a rigorous, structured, objectively measured tranche of study requiring discipline and self-motivation.

building a lab, acquiring controlled chemicals, and conducting unguided, solitary experimentation and study was not a pragmatic option for me, as i'd find most engineers would conclude. some things just wouldn't work out without formal ed.

there's an extent to which some of the libarts degrees which were popularized in the last decade or two were just created to accommodate students who would otherwise dilute the quality of students enrolled in universities' more prestigious programs without flatly turning away paying customers. thats my dry opinion of what drove an insurgence of hyper-specialty libarts and socsci fields. some people dont want to have a highly applicable degree. some go to college for tradition, love of knowledge, social, athletic, confidence or boredom sake, and these fields often appeal to these folks.

univeristies are businesses and have made some decisions to accommodate a bubble which the internet, home-study, and a shitty job market have deflated. like any business, they'll change their roll for the next 20 years, as needed.

 

[Annie]

I would like to see liberal arts programs that brought back more classical education curriculum. Even 30 years ago there were too many programs that were 'feel good' rather than educational. I'll admit to being doubtful that the universities would be able to find the faculty to teach.

 

[Diuretic]

I am.

Force some to close, others to shut down departments with nonexistant career paths, and still others to help guide students to a viable employment opportunity.

You can leave a few navel-gazing or buggy whip manufacturing departments open. But only a few, and they have to have great big yellow caution signs on their entrances.

News flash: most students go to college to get a decent job. Colleges are not delivering on that inducement.

That would make higher learning simply a vocational education process. Surely a society needs universities to do more than that. I think society should be prepared to invest in universities to be more than vocational colleges.

I don't agree that college students with majors that will lead to employment are any less able to think critically or appreciate the arts, etc. than those with degree paths they can never hope to use. But even if I concede this, how is it fair for society to extract this elusive something-something from its young by betraying promises of employablity in order to induce them to attend college?

Whatever this "something" is that colleges and universities "should" produce apart from an educated and employable work force, if we really want/need it...won't someone step forward to buy it/donate it/fund it?

I wouldn't ask for a concession on your first point. I really can't think of any discipline in a university which would produce a graduate less able to think critically than in any other discipline. I think the development of critical thinkers transcends all the disciplines and since I'm not one to be a discipline snob I would certainly not hold that an Arts degree, for example, produces a critical thinker where, for example, an Engineering degree doesn't. Have you read Schon on this sort of thing, the reflective practitioner thesis?

Sadly any student undertaking any discipline in university is in a crap shoot when it comes to employment. Someone can graduate with an engineering degree and be unemployed, the vagaries of the market and all that. All I can say on that is that if they're going to be studying for four years they really need to be interested in what they're studying.

I don't see education as a sort of finishing requirement for young ladies and gentlemen. I see any form of education as a chance for an individual to develop themselves to the best they can be. Yes I know, platitudinous, but since I came to higher education later in life I have that annoying trait of the recently converted to evangelise and be a general pain in the arse.

And at this point cultural values come to the fore. I believe that if private universities want to set up and operate on a for-profit basis then that's fine. But I also believe that there should be sufficient universities properly funded out of the public purse to ensure that a nation offers to those that have the potential are allowed to achieve that function regardless of means. And I don't restrict that to the classical professions or the technological professions, a BA with a major in classics or history or literature or whatever should be treated the same way.

 

[Diuretic]

I would like to see liberal arts programs that brought back more classical education curriculum. Even 30 years ago there were too many programs that were 'feel good' rather than educational. I'll admit to being doubtful that the universities would be able to find the faculty to teach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John's_College_(United_States)

This place always fascinated me with its approach.

 

[midcan5]

"Art teaches nothing except the significance of life." Arthur Miller

When civilization moved out of the dark ages it was humanism that created all that freed us from the chains of ignorance, it seems today in America we are moving back in the direction of the dark ages. Liberal arts should remain important in college, after that can come the drudgery of life and work.


"If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness." David Foster Wallace


[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Joyless-Economy-Psychology-Human-Satisfaction/dp/0195073479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction (9780195073478): Tibor Scitovsky: Books[/ame]

 

[Skull Pilot]

I will say that liberal arts programs are pretty useless.

There is nothing in a liberal arts curriculum that you can't learn on your own for free at the library.

 

[Diuretic]

I will say that liberal arts programs are pretty useless.

There is nothing in a liberal arts curriculum that you can't learn on your own for free at the library.

What books at the library would you suggest reading to satisfy the requirements to pass examinations in liberal arts subjects?

 

[Skull Pilot]

I will say that liberal arts programs are pretty useless.

There is nothing in a liberal arts curriculum that you can't learn on your own for free at the library.

What books at the library would you suggest reading to satisfy the requirements to pass examinations in liberal arts subjects?

Look up the books the college courses require and read them.

Duh.

 

[Diuretic]

I will say that liberal arts programs are pretty useless.

There is nothing in a liberal arts curriculum that you can't learn on your own for free at the library.

What books at the library would you suggest reading to satisfy the requirements to pass examinations in liberal arts subjects?

Look up the books the college courses require and read them.

Duh.

Okay, that was a good comeback. Now, how should they be read?

Or does that require simply reading another book?

How to Read a Book - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Madeline]

I don't know why we are hating on the liberal arts anymore than on the social sciences. My point isn't that such knowledge has no value...of course it does. It's that if we tell an entire generation to attend college because its the pathway to a better life and then we drive them into majors, departments and degrees that have ZERO to little chance of finding employability in the field, we are stealing from our kids.

We KNOW we do not have use for the vast excess of new teachers, new lawyers, etc. we are churning out. I'm not saying don't educate these kids. But what's wrong with driving them into education paths that are better geared to future employment?

 

[Skull Pilot]

What books at the library would you suggest reading to satisfy the requirements to pass examinations in liberal arts subjects?

Look up the books the college courses require and read them.

Duh.

Okay, that was a good comeback. Now, how should they be read?

Or does that require simply reading another book?

How to Read a Book - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How should they be read?

You know I actually read that book years ago

 

[antagon]

I will say that liberal arts programs are pretty useless.

There is nothing in a liberal arts curriculum that you can't learn on your own for free at the library.

What books at the library would you suggest reading to satisfy the requirements to pass examinations in liberal arts subjects?

Look up the books the college courses require and read them.

Duh.

of course, were there no longer the curriculum to reference...