Maggie's Farm

Readers know that I have long rejected the notion of a college-level Liberal Arts-focused education as an economic investment. However, I have praised it as a potentially life-enhancing guided exploration more deeply into our culture and into current knowledge than secondary school can do (although good private schools can do it). "Cultivation of the mind" and all that.

In other words, do I do not think of it as utilitarian. (Colleges were designed for scholars and clery - for the cognitive and/ or financially elite.) I learned much in high school and in college which have never provided me with a penny of profit but which I believe have enhanced my life in countless ways: Geology, Statistics, Intro Music History, Ancient Greek History, Russian Lit, etc.

However, when I went to college the ways of learning these things outside college were not as accessible as they are today. The self-informed scholars of the past had to spend hours in libraries, after work, just to try to figure out where to start. Today, you can get the best Music History course in the world from the Teaching Company for $200. and enjoy it at leisure - with no exams.

So we return to my recurrent question: Is Liberal Arts college about job-preparation, for networking, is it a meaningless credential, is it a way to delay adulthood, or is it a guided exploration into our culture and knowledge for the deeply curious and scholarly with high IQ? 

In Obama's economy, the reality hits. Plumbers making $70-150/hr make much more money than most recent college grads and lead more independent and entrepreneurial careers. In fact, more than many recently-graduated professionals.

Insty found this post, How Liberal Arts Colleges Are Failing America, which asserts that colleges should do more to teach the kids how to make money. I beg to differ.