The Effect of Liberal Arts

The Artes Liberales have been undermined by the more science-math focused modern society. David F. Labaree, Andrew Delbanco and Nannerl Keohane believe that the quality of college education is diminishing due to the lack of emphasis colleges put to the liberal arts. College education has taken a big shift in focus towards a more specialized rather than liberal education. A liberal arts education broadens your critical thinking and analyzing skills, which prepares the student for most jobs on the market.

The purpose of liberal arts is to produce a virtuous, knowledgeable, and articulate person. Without liberal arts, education would be completely ineffective. Keohane stresses that the diminishing amount of students receiving some sort of liberal arts degree in the United States is crippling our educational system. Keohane believes that liberal arts must be a predominant topic of study in this country to balance the “increasingly specialized disciplines” with a more historical liberal arts foundation. The author understands the lack of emphasis the liberal arts are receiving; therefore, he urges the presidents of colleges to use their “fund-raising skills and obligations” to raise money for liberal arts programs.

Labaree also believes in the change of focus of college education. He states, “but credentialism has turned this liberal education back toward vocational goals” (Labaree 15). Labaree believes in the existence of a very strong shift in the focus of higher education, towards a more specialized education, focused in producing a more efficient work force specialized in a particular function or task. A specialized education “can easily turn into a dead end” (p. 15), which resembles Keohane’s “insurance against obsolescence.”(p. 3). Because of the market influence, a college’s purpose has become to land its students a job rather than teach knowledge and how to apply it.

Throughout history, universities have evolved with society. As fields of study become more specialized, while other fields of study become obsolete, the educational system has to keep up with the ‘fast’ pace of the world. Since the employment-population ratio is going down, job seekers are becoming more selective, thus the universities are being pressured because there’s less chance students will land a job after graduation. Under this pressure, universities morph their curriculum to fit properly with the new ‘specialized’ fields; consequently, college is becoming more about getting a better job rather than gaining knowledge. Since the liberal arts cover a broader context, the new ‘specialized’ curriculum start to focus less on the liberal arts.

Delbanco, in the Chronicle article, argues that colleges in America have become less and less liberal in both their goals and content. As he says in his article, “To succeed in sustaining college as a place where liberal learning still takes place will be very costly.