I teach in a career-focused undergraduate program where most of the students go on to work. We have a 95%+ graduation rate and successful job placement or graduate school acceptance rate. I attended a liberal arts college and got a “useless” degree that has kept me employed at meaningful work, got me into graduate school, and has led to me teaching said career-focused undergrads. Since I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to do for a career as an undergraduate, a career-focused major would have been a bad fit and unenjoyable. My students tend to stay in their field, but are less well prepared to change fields or work in a cross-disciplinary way if a job requires it. I’d argue that there’s room for both types of program and that major is not necessarily associated with employment outcome or satisfaction.
The most successful people I know seem to have had broad and varied educational backgrounds, sometimes switching disciplines in mid-stream or going on to postgraduate studies seemingly unrelated to their undergraduate work. This can be valuable in part because many contemporary fields of study are increasingly becoming multi-disciplinary, and even when they’re not obviously so, those with varied backgrounds often provide uniquely valuable insights and perspectives. Additionally, unrelated disciplines can be important assets in their own right: philosophy can be an important adjunct to scientific thinking, for example, and the ability to communicate well is valuable everywhere. There’s nothing wrong with vocational training, but it shouldn’t be confused with education in the true meaning of the word.
To add to Dangerosa’s post, a good example of a person having exactly the right aptitude for the job despite apparently the “wrong” background was when Lou Gerstner was brought in to save IBM from what could have been a catastrophic collapse during a time of great turmoil in the computer industry. Many were doubtful that anyone could pull the world’s premier tech company back from the brink, given the transformation that the industry was going through and the corporate giants it had already taken down, but if anyone could do it – so went the common wisdom – it would have to be someone with a transformative vision of the future of technology. It certainly wouldn’t be “cookie man” Gerstner, who came to IBM from Nabisco, and pundits snickered that he knew more about breakfast cereals than he did about computers.
Gerstner of course became widely lauded and honored for perhaps the most miraculous turnaround in corporate history. Yet not only had his entire career background been outside of the tech industry, but his undergraduate background was in engineering, which had little to do with either cookies, computers, or business. Interestingly, in his application to the undergraduate program at Dartmouth, the young Gerstner endorsed the value of a broad education, writing that “intellectual curiosity seeks knowledge … the complex world of today crisscrosses a thousand and one different aspects of learning and a specialist is at home only in his own field.”
I do agree with that.
The for profit education direction has been a notable failure at all levels.
Strong points!
Any post-high school education needs to include some real breadth.
Kids coming out of high school don’t know what they want to be when they grow up, and they aren’t going to find out by charting a course through college that focuses on one job.
Also, going to all that school with being one dimensional as an objective is how you get to be boring, be at greater risk related to economic change and be unprepared for opportunity.
I think the “I’m not ready to pin myself down to a career decision” is a good point.
If you want to be a medical doctor, or an engineer, or an accountant, or an application developer right out of school, start on that path. But if you aren’t sure and none of the career prep stuff appeals - getting a liberal arts degree is fine for many many jobs out there - and fine preperation for grad school in law or business (and I’ve known a History major or English major or two that have ended up in med school - sometimes needing to pick up a few more Science courses before applying).
Now, it probably isn’t a good idea to pick NYU ($51k a year tuition) to explore yourself and major in Anthropology (unless your student aid package is awesome or your college fund is unusually well funded). But there is no reason why you can’t go to Hunter College (as a New York resident you’ll pay $6520 per year if you can live at home) - you can waste just as much money spending a year starting an Engineering degree because its a STEM field that will lead to a job - and then discover you don’t like it or won’t make the cut to actually take the upper level coursework.
Why should we save students from the themselves? There is thread after thread here of the cutting edge thought coming out of high schools and colleges, and how society needs to change on a dime every time there is a student protest going on. But now we have to protect students from themselves? Which one is it?
My father was a bricklayer and my mother a house wife. When I was a high school student looking to go to college, my parents took me to the one friend they knew that they could call on with a college degree to talk with. After I told him about the schools I could get into, from the cheap state school to the private school in the city that cost more per year that my father made in a year, he said something which I agree with to this day.
College is an investment pure and simple. If you think the investment to the expensive school will pay dividends over your life, go there. If not, pick another one. If you think you’re major will pay dividends over your life, go there. If not, pick another one. This is arguably the second most expensive decision you’ll ever make.
In this light, I don’t feel bad for the people taking out a $200,000 loan to get their Art History degrees from Yale. Feel free to saddle up your big boy pants before you whine about your ability (in ability most likely) to pay this off.
If you’re saying that economic factors are the only factors that should influence where you go to college and what you major in, I disagree. I do agree that it’s important to keep such factors in mind; to disregard them is a luxury most people can’t afford. But how much you will actually enjoy both the college experience itself, and the life it prepares you to live, should also be a consideration.
Exactly. The value of an education extends far beyond dollars and shouldn’t be evaluated purely in mercenary terms.
Nor, I should also say, is the best education (especially at the undergraduate level) necessarily associated with the most prestigious universities. Some may have acquired their reputations through the quality of their research, which may speak to great research opportunities in the right postgraduate programs but may have little or no value to the undergrad. And one needs to remember that many schools – the Ivy League in particular – tend to filter admissions with an overwhelming bias toward perceived likelihood of career and life success, which begs the question of whether the enviable track record of their graduates is due to the excellence of their education or the relentlessly uncompromising judgments of the admissions office.
I bet admissions officers wish they were as clever as you make them out to be.
Don’t forget the halo effect and the networking effect. The best universities offer advantages beyond education. Most employers, if they see two equivalent resumes one from a Harvard grad and one from a Podunk U grad are going to go with the Harvard grad -especially right out of school. (After 20 years it won’t matter so much.) People assume graduates from top schools are smarter, right or not.
I’ve benefited from this myself, and so have other members of my family.
“Mercenary terms,” interesting way to put it.
As a liberal arts guy, I agree with part of this (that’s why I put “pay dividends” to include more than just the money). But the cost needs to play more of a part than it does to many today in my opinion. I read and hear about “the college experience” all the time, and I read and hear about the mountain of debt college students have and why won’t someone (the government?) do something about it so it’s a problem for many
I lived near an Ivy League school growing up but didn’t go there. I’m in my 50s now and I have one friend who thinks she’s still behind due to the loan she had to pay off for so long. Sure she has an English degree from Yale, but it’s absolutely never paid for itself, and while it’s cool, she’s not convinced that it was worth it. But she was 18, she was accepted and could get the loans so off she went.
As I’ve moved through life, I know some amazing people who are kicking ass from Penn and Yale. I know some amazing people who are kicking ass from schools I’ve never heard of, and I’ve lived all over the country. What you do in school, and what you make of it when you’re there is the important part. I’ve had a number of jobs and one - my first one - was the only one that wanted to see my transcripts. Yes the school is important, but is it worth the total cost?
The money isn’t all of the equation, but it’ a big part of it, and it gets ignored until it’s too late.
Focusing too much on “specific career goals” leads to a lack of flexibility: what’s a workable career path today may change completely in a few years. Back when I attended it, the only degrees my college offered were in ChemE, but we had graduates who worked as Marketing Manager for IBM Europe, diplomats (a profession where people with science backgrounds are sorely needed), managing family businesses ranging from a single restaurant to subsidiaries in all continents, or in the military.
The flexibility and, if you’ll pardon the direct translation from Spanish, focus on “furnishing the mind” rather than on specific careers has served us all well. My own career path has taken me to multiple continents and more employers/clients than I would ever have thought possible when I was 18, partly because I went to a school which, while offering a degree that may sound very specific, did so in a fashion designed to teach us how to find and manage information, rather than teaching us specific types of information.
I’m not suggesting we save students from themselves. I’m suggesting we stop saving banks from themselves.
Banks don’t hand out business loans for a bad business plan, why are they handing out student loans when the student is unlikely to turn their education into a career profitable enough to pay the loan back? Because student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, business loans can.
Forgiving student loans without bankruptcy would be saving students from themselves. I still think you should have to declare bankruptcy - I just think that the bank needs to take some responsibility for making a loan to someone who isn’t likely to be able to pay it back.
Well first, you mention managing family businesses. Well that’s different because your working for family and they basically sort of have to let you work there no matter what your degree is. So I dont think they qualify as good examples. Same as people who use family connections to get on with a company.
Second, while I’m glad you felt your education was worth it times have changed and college is damn expensive. Is it worth putting someone maybe $100,000 in debt to just say they are “furnishing the mind”?
I’m not saying a person should be somewhat balanced and ready to go into other careers. What I’m saying is to do it sensibly. For example, go to in state schools which are cheaper. Look for the schools with the best financial aid packages.
Finally I still think you should graduate college with at least one marketable skill as opposed to just a general liberal arts background. Case in point - I knew a woman who graduated with an english degree. BUT, she also had computer skills plus good typing so she started as a secretary but was in a position where she could work into better positions and use her writing skills.
I’m from Kansas City and from what I can tell is many times people who went to Harvard or Yale are sometimes shunned because employers feel they will be arrogant, want too much money, or make many demands just because they went to Harvard. I guess its a bigger deal if your on the coasts.
Also from what I’ve heard is 5 years out of college employers could care less.
Please let me share this Dave Ramsey video.
In it the person racked up $145,000 in student debt and now works as a teacher making only $38,000 a year. Why did she rack up that much debt?
So she could play Div 1 water polo.
What Dave Ramsey says is to use common sense. If you want to be a teacher, go to a local affordable college and look for methods to cut the cost. Plus look into debt forgiveness programs.
Only rack up massive debt if you have a good shot at going into a career that pays well.
I’m also in the Midwest, and that hasn’t been my experience AT ALL. When people are arrogant, they don’t tend to come to a place like Minneapolis or Kansas City unless they are recruited in. The top tier graduates I’ve known - personally or have worked with - have either been recruited in (which is the vast majority of cases), or they moved here to Minnesota because they (or their spouse) has family here - and that takes some humility to do to start with. Those people - the ones not recruited to the cold white North - understand that their salaries will not be East Coast or Silicon Valley - if they want those salaries, they’ll move there. But they understand that the job they get in the Midwest with their top tier degree is likely to have a little more work life balance, that they’ll be able to get a great steak for $40 (or less) and go to the movie for $7.50 on a Friday night, and that there is a 2500 sq ft house within commuting distance of their job for less than $250k.
The ones recruited in aren’t looking for a job, and aren’t usually staying when they move on from this one.
This decision should be entirely up to the university. If interested students are signing up for the courses, and the accompanying debt, then keep teaching the courses. If interest falls off then they can shift.
Are we supposed to pretend students are NOT already under heaps of pressure to take a degree that leads to a job? And have been for a couple of decades. From parents, and educators, not to mention outside busybodies. Seriously?
They are the ones taking on debt, (most all of which gets repaid.) Most people with a degree not working in a related field still value that education, when asked, in my experience, and in this thread.
As long as grown adults choose to study English literature it’s not your affair. No one is tricking adults into studying liberal arts. If they’re at a uni, they are old enough to make that value choice for themselves. And invite everyone else to stay out of it!
(It’s the ‘Liberal’, part of liberal arts that scares you, isn’t it? )
That depends. if students want to take a subject because of a passion for it, ok. But if they are being duped by professor WantsYourBucks in the department of blah-blah studies who tells them they will make a million bucks over what they would be making and to “follow your dreams”, then yes I have a problem with it.
Remember they are just 18. Society wont lend them $100,000 for a home or car loan.
I dont think they totally realize how long its going to take to repay $100,000 of debt while just making $30,000 a year living in expensive cities. Remember they are just 18.
Yes, professors wanting butts to fill the seats in their departments certainly will. And remember, they are just 18.
I’m not afraid of history, english, and the humanities.
Thank you. Good points.
I can see the advantages of saying “You are going to major in theater arts - we won’t lend you tuition money unless somebody co-signs the loan, or unless you have enough assets to secure the loan in case you declare bankruptcy”. The disadvantage is that there won’t be any theater arts majors, or at least a lot fewer of them.
Banks don’t want to lose money. If the bankruptcy laws are set up such that they probably won’t get paid back, with interest, they won’t make the loan.
That isn’t much different if it is a degree that is likely to lead to employment vs. any other kind, of course. If someone graduates from medical school with no assets beyond a second-hand car but very large future income potential, it doesn’t seem to me that he or she be able to get out from under his (no doubt very large debts) any more than someone who majors in the violin who graduates from Harvard.
Taking out a loan is just as much a business decision as giving a loan. Borrowing money you won’t be able to pay back is a bad idea. So is loaning money you won’t be repaid. I don’t see that not giving you an out is saving you from yourself in either case.
If we make student loans dischargeable thru bankruptcy, then banks are going to adjust. If we don’t, then students will have to adjust. Neither of them is going to like it.
Regards,
Shodan