Death of the Liberal Arts College?

Are the big colleges not providing it or are students (and their parents) resistant to taking advantage of a well-rounded education?

I think that's the real issue. While I happen to teach in an area that does have a "direct feed" to a professional career, I absolutely believe in the value of sciences, humanities, history, writing, and, and, and. . . . and students fight it because "what does this have to do with getting a job doing X?"

I tell them that college is not only about preparing for a career but it is about preparing to be a thoughtful citizen of the world. Do they listen? Sometimes.

But parents are often worse than the students in this respect. It's not a good thing, but don't knock big schools because the wealth of opportunity is there if people are open to experiencing it. And small schools can be treated just as narrowly in the career-prep mentality. It isn't the school that is the problem.

I believe the answer is, unlike in the past, college is indeed viewed as an education to do a specific job. With so many people going to college now, a degree doesn't mean what it used to, so you'd better be prepared to do something with one. Gone are the days when you could get a good job with a good company with nothing but a high school diploma and a good head on your shoulders. Back then a well-rounded college education was an advantage for a job seeker no matter what the subject matter. Now it seems that everyone and their dog has a degree, so employers are looking for degrees that directly translate into job training: business, accounting, journalism, computer sciences, the hard sciences like chemistry and biology. A history or psychology or English degree will no longer set you apart from the pack.

This is primarily the result of two big changes in the United States. The first is the stagnating economy. The first generation in our history that could not expect to do better than their parents is now sending their kids to college. They have an understandable anxiety about their children's ability to make a decent living, and they reasonably fear that a degree in Art History, English Literature or Liberal Arts might not improve their chances. The second reason is the vast number of people going to college. Once it was the province of the wealthy and their offspring. Young people with an assured future went to college to become well-rounded. Someone whose parents worked two jobs all their lives to put them through school wants a job.

I don't disagree with you. I think we're losing something special as the small liberal arts colleges fade away. But the big universities do still have breadth requirements, and the one fourth of college students who eventually graduate get a fairly decent education.

The good liberal arts college don't want those beer-and-football party animals anyway. And best facilities? What does that mean? Look at some of the best liberal arts colleges (www.ctcl.com) and you'll see great facilities.

placing aside the sarcastic/trollish nature of your question... No. Liberal arts are: the arts (Arts, English, distant places Languages, historic previous, and Philosophy), the Social Sciences (Anthropology, communique, Geography, Political technological understanding, Psychology, Sociology, and girls human beings’s analyze), the Sciences (Biology, Geology, and Physics), and arithmetic. If conservatives think of those are not substantial, they are unfastened to make their very own majors.