Remember the importance of the liberal arts

In the contemporary world of higher education, the liberal arts core has slipped into dire straits. With the price tag of a university education increasing, combined with pressure on students to choose profitable areas of study in an unstable economy, the idea of education for education’s sake has become an increasingly foreign concept as a degree has become a prerequisite to earning a job. The liberal arts are being abandoned for the sustainable income guaranteed by an applied professional field.  While a degree in a profitable field can lead to a sense of long-term security, the value of the classical education must be remembered and its legacy upheld as higher education becomes more accessible and popular.

Most majors are not dedicated to rigid professions at the undergraduate level at Ivy League universities and top-tier liberal arts colleges. For many universities, the idea of a classical education is still a strong foundation of their undergraduate curriculum. Their philosophy would lend itself to the belief that universities serve ideals higher that trade schools. If university educations are solely utilitarian, then why don’t universities open undergraduate medical school programs and law programs? The answer: Because there is, in theory, much to be learned about life and the world itself before one learns about their chosen career path.

Without the liberal arts, we forget why we do what we do as a society and thus are unable to ask questions in regard to our roles and future directions. Majors in the professions allow students to become highly prepared and functional cogs in machines which already exist. However, with a liberal arts degree we are able to question the value of the “machine” and function thereof as a whole.

The goal of a liberal arts education is not the ability to hold a solid command of intriguing cocktail party conversation or to sound smarter than the person sitting next to you at the symphony concert. The root of the phrase “liberal arts” is derived from the Greek word “liberalis” or “worth of a free person.” It is the ability for one to be free to make own educated and informed decisions on how one wishes to live one’s own life. Armed with an informed understanding of the sciences, arts and humanities one is able to not only work with sectors of civilization but the building blocks of civilization itself.

However, the waning popularity of the liberal arts may present a new wave of educational democratization. Once only a privilege reserved to children of elite families, a university education was meant as a practice with purely intrinsic value. There was to be no immediate return on the investment of a university education. The learning process was a time to learn about the world, not a time to master an industry. With the democratization of higher education and higher accessibility comes the pressure to make returns on the investment of higher education. We have begun trading the hard sciences for engineering, economics for business, English, history, philosophy, and political science for journalism, marketing and public policy.

There is an era upon us in which universities will have to grapple with their pedagogical goals for the future. While the applicability of a degree is certainly an important component to consider, the value of a classical, well-rounded education is valuable enough to be preserved as higher education moves into the future.