Comments about ‘In the Whirled: How business killed the college experience’

I don't see anything wrong with a liberal arts degree. There is value in studying literature, philosophy and art -- if you pay cash. I wouldn't borrow money for an education unless it is truly an investment that will increase your ability to pay off the debt.

We actually do need more doctors. We don't need more businessmen and lawyers, but there is a shortage of doctors.

Interesting article. I disagree with the idea that your college education pigeon holes you into some category for the rest of your life. A meaningful life can be had regardless of your major and regardless of whether you graduated from college.

I also disagree with the major categorizations in general. If more liberal arts degree graduates will some how save our cultural, political, and deep thoughts of our communities from our shallowness then why don't those innovative, creative, community changing thoughts show up in the theater, or politics, or museums, or lecture halls? Hollywood and Broadway are about as shallow as it gets, if there is any depth left in those wonderful think tanks. Museums are usually mandatory field trips never to be visited again (you think business is boring, try staring at a stuffed bird).

Unfortunately, navel gazing, as fun as that is, doesn't pay your bills unless it is followed directly by entrepreneurial action (for which a business degree is very useful).

As a lover of the liberal arts, I warmed to this perspective on the purpose of college. I would add, however, that undergraduate degrees in philosophy, literature, economics, music, art, etc. are perfectly good preparations for graduate programs in business, medicine, and law. They may need to be supplemented by a few courses in order to meet admission requirements of professional programs, but such programs never (that I know of) require that one's undergraduate major was in a particular subject. In other words, one does not need a B.A. in business to be prepared for MBA programs, a B.A. in biology (a liberal arts subject) to be prepared for M.D. programs, or a B.A. in political science (another liberal arts subject) to be prepared for J.D. programs. For example, students who major in history or philosophy are admitted to medical school at higher rates (though not higher numbers) than those who majored in biology or chemistry, according to data published by the Association of American Medical Colleges. I say do what you love as an undergraduate, then received specialized training for a profession at the graduate level. Also, choose an undergraduate college without bloated major requirements that hinder four-year graduation and exploration of a variety of the liberal arts. (Hint: highly-subsidized universities tend to have bloated major requirements.)

We know that except for those studying the hard sciences or theology, college was mostly for the wealthy who didn't need to work. College was for self actualization. I knew many kids when I was in college who studied liberal arts and knew that their only chance of employment in their field was to teach those subjects to others. Those who didn't get those coveted teaching posts ended up asking the profound question - "Do you want fires with that?"

John Armstrong seems to state that a liberal arts degree is basically only good for preparation to get into programs teaching the hated subjects of business, medicine and law. An undergrad degree in liberal arts is obviously less viable in obtaining a career than undergratuate degrees in business and other career oriented programs.

Having "Do you want fries with that?" degrees are a major cause of kids not being able to find jobs and earn enough money to pay off student loans. The government shouldn't issue student loans for degrees for which there are not enough jobs available in those fields.

I did a BA and then went to law school. I practiced for 35 years mostly as a courtroom counsel. When asked by many students over the years what is the best undergraduate degree for a lawyer I invariably said "English Literature". Knowing our language and its use is the heart and soul of pursuasion.

I loved your article Tiffany.

Excellent comment BobP.

My degree is in Computer Science, but I have to say, English Literature was one of my favorites.

No, I did not say that studying the liberal arts is good only as grad school preparation. It is good for its own sake, too. If one does not think that personal refinement, cultural knowledge, and appreciating what is good, true, and beautiful make one's life better, or that the glory of God and humanity is intelligence, then skip getting a liberal education and see if you have any regrets down the road. Education is not just about improving one's prospects for making money.

John Armstrong
No, I did not say that studying the liberal arts is good only as grad school preparation. It is good for its own sake, too. If one does not think that personal refinement, cultural knowledge, and appreciating what is good, true, and beautiful make one's life better, or that the glory of God and humanity is intelligence, then skip getting a liberal education and see if you have any regrets down the road. Education is not just about improving one's prospects for making money.

LDS4
Fair enough, but don't ask the taxpayers to subsidize your own personal fulfillment. If you have the cash, go for it. If I win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, I'd probably go back to school and take classes in things which I find interesting.

If your education isn't going to make you money and keep you off the dole, the government shouldn't be helping you get it, especially since you will be less able to pay off your loans.

I must agree both in principle and in practice. Having gone the route of somewhat 'forced' undergraduate Political Science while pointed to law school, then practicing law as essentially a law-degreed social worker (the rewarding work), with business stuff on the side in order to pay the bills, I am appalled that we have turned BYU and BYU Hawaii into business-oriented schools. I am not impressed by the myriad MBA's out there, frankly. I really don't see the contributions to a better society by so many business-oriented people, with making money-on-money as their primary goal (not actually producing a useful product or service). I went to college to obtain a broad higher education, although having to short-change that goal somewhat in last two years in order to obtain a degree and get into law school and get on with 'making it' -- I would do things differently if done over again, although our society now days puts up so many road blocks, and has its priorities and values disjointed -- just look at what different 'jobs/skills' receive in pay -- we are not 'enlightened' as a society at all.

I am glad that you have written just how I feel about University Education. It seems to me that College has really become a big trade school without hands on experience. No one know anything about business, law or medicine when they receive their undergraduate degrees it takes years of apprentice time after. Same with liberal arts except that the student has been prepared to learn and has developed a knowledge base upon which to draw conclusions to problems that arise. Thanks for lamenting the loss of a more civil society.

I am all for the technically focused universities and colleges, I hated that I was basically forced to take classes in Art and what I considered to be non-useful education. I suffered through those classes and they impacted my GPA because they could never motivate me to achieve the standard that I set for the technical aspects of my degree pursuit. Having said that, I now spend more money at Barnes and Nobles in the classical literature book section than I do in any other section. I read the classics and many non-technical books because I want to, not because I have to. I think that desire was kindled because of the introduction that I got through those classes that I despised. I find them more interesting at my pace and I enjoy them more because I don't have to read them. I have even begun asking on hiring interviews what books the candidate is reading, with a specific query about classical literature. I want to hire candidates that are comfortable with who they are and what they can do. Yes we still have to read technical literature, but we also need to appreciate the classical.

I teach at a liberal arts college, Southern Virginia University. We surveyed our alumni last summer about their post-undergraduate lives. Of those who sought full-time employment (the vast majority of the 640 responding), 93 percent were employed full-time and working in a wide variety of industries. It occurs to me after reflecting on the "Do you want fries with that?" canard that only one of graduates said that he was working in a restaurant -- and that was during the summer before starting a master's degree program. Rather, our graduates reported working full-time in information technology, social work, public education, web design, insurance, banking, health care, retail, real estate, publishing, law enforcement, pharmaceuticals, human resources, and so on. Many of them were managers in these industries. Then there is the 43 percent who have gone to graduate school who are or who will shortly become doctors, dentists, lawyers, business managers, teachers, and so on. I do not mean to brag but only to inject some data into a conversation about the merits of studying the liberal arts as an undergraduate student. By no means does studying the liberal arts put one at a disadvantage when it comes to the world of work. Rather, it is an unfortunate misconception that one must study as an undergraduate the industry in which one will eventually be employed -- unfortunate and short-sighted.

I recently read an article entitled "On Giving and Getting" by Howard May. In it, he quotes CS Lewis who once said Nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead. As a student at a liberal arts college, Southern Virginia University, I am grateful I have taken my undergraduate degree as a time to "be still," appreciate, analyze, and explore life. I worry for my peers whose desks pile with "The Millionaire Fastlane," "Increase your Financial IQ," and "_______ for Dummies," etc....

Balance my friends, icluding the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. Too much or too little of somethings can hurt you. Education is all about having the right ingredients, in the right amounts, at the place, and time to produce the desired personal outcome for you and others.

I practiced law for 35 years. I quit an after a year or so working in the far north of Canada, went to Korea and spent a little over 8 years teaching at a univeristy in Korea. one of my students just finished a PhD at the University of Tennessee. Another student, a young lady just started a PhD at Columbia.

I should have gone to teaching long before I did.

I found this article a little self indulgent and starry eyed. Pre WWII college had little to do with career, it was a finishing school for children of the wealthy. They went to refine themselves since money was not an issue for most men going into the rich family's profession. What they studied was for culture not career.

Most women who went to college pre-WWII was intended to prepare them to marry up, or to occupy them while waiting to be married.

Post WWII we grew past industrial and into technology and information jobs requiring higher skills. Also women who had been working at the jobs realized the freedoms this gave them and many did not leave the work force, men needed to be assimilated slowly back into the economy as jobs became available, college facilitated this and provided higher skills required in the new economy.

Colleges themselves, have swung too far with liberal arts, often becoming rampantly liberalized and providing no marketable skills. Its time to swing back to career focus and they know it. The liberal media decries the realignment away from liberal propaganda majors and a return to teaching people to work.

My gut tells me that we have plenty of lawyers and businessmen already. But my head tells me that students wouldn't be flocking to these fields if there wasn't a lot of employment opportunity there, and there wouldn't be a lot of employment opportunity there if the market wasn't demanding more lawyers and businessmen. And the market rarely lies. It is an accurate mirror held up to the face of society that shows every wart, pimple, and blemish.

If the market is demanding more lawyers, it is because *we* want more lawyers. However much we love to hate on them in our public and private discourse, the truth is that most of us are all too ready to lawyer up when its *our* dubious personal injury claim, or thinskinned perception of discrimination, or very bad decision whose onus we want to shift onto someone else.

Ditto businessmen. We all profess to hate the breed, but not enough to let them fail. We bail them out with taxpayer dollars instead.

I'm comfortable asserting that we do, in fact, need more healthcare providers.

Man does not live by bread alone, and I treasured those classes where a good professor opened a new world of ideas.

However, the classes I found most exciting were mostly math and science classes. These ended up contributing greatly to my ability to make a comfortable living doing pleasant work. The other component of my employability is my ability to program computers. But I haven't taken a course in computer programming since high school. The skill was self-taught.

So a good chunk of my employability comes from a self-taught skill. Most of the rest comes from the classes I loved at university. Were there any classes I found stimulating that did _not_ bear on my employability?

Only one comes to mind. It was a freshman course on American government and economics. It made me a much better voter and citizen. But it was taught in a room holding 500 students by a professor I rarely within a hundred feet of. Four year's tuition, living expenses, and time out of the work force, for a single humanities class that could as well have been taught online, is just not a cost-effective approach to liberal education.