Novel Ideas [23]: Attacking Higher Ed
I’d like rant a little bit today about something that has been happening in my fair state. North Carolina’s governor, Pat McCrory, has recently spoken out about his plans for our university system. In particular, he spoke about funding to this system. It is no secret that our system features incredibly affordable public universities, heavily subsidized by the state government. Apparently, Governor McCrory is not a fan of our system because he feels our graduates fail to get jobs. Instead of giving money to universities based on the number of students enrolled, he proposed giving money based on the number of students who get jobs.
McCrory argued, “I think some of the educational elite have taken over our education where we are offering courses that have no chance of getting people jobs,” and proceeded to cite gender studies and philosophy degrees specifically as producers of unemployable graduates. (BTW, Governor, if the educational elite shouldn’t be running education — their area of expertise — then who should be? Isn’t that the job they were trained to do? I’m confused.)
This has become, essentially, a battle between vocation and liberal arts education. It’s a very common educational debate: are we preparing student for jobs or are we preparing them to think critically with a broad base of learning experiences? I’ll say up front that I am firmly in the liberal arts camp. I went to college to get a liberal arts education, not to get a job. And this model has been highly successful at schools like UNC-Chapel Hill. It enrages me to see what politicians want to do in the name of “job creation” or “the economy.” The last thing we need is thousands of engineering students (who would rather have been philosophers) flooding the job market and making things worse.
There are many more good points stated in various articles and blog posts that I have seen posted around Facebook: businesses are actually looking for skills taught in liberal arts degrees, that Governor McCrory himself has a liberal arts degree (and a job…), that Republicans are anti-intellectual, that Republicans would have benefited from some gender studies knowledge during the 2012 elections, that the job market is too unpredictable to determine with majors will lead to jobs, etc. It just really makes me sad to see what the leader of my state values. Am I particularly surprised? No. But that does not make the verbal blow hurt any less.
If you want to know more about this issue in depth, you can read this article from The Charlotte Observer.
Or check out this blog post from Religion News Services that examines the politics of this debate.
What do you think is the value of a liberal arts education? Do you stand on the vocational side or the liberal arts side of this debate?
Posted on February 6, 2013, in Current Events, grad school, history, librarian, People, quotes, rants, teacher and tagged ch-ch-ch-changes, current events, education, feminist, grad school, liberal arts degrees, liberal arts education, novel ideas, politics, teaching, unc chapel hill, why?. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Mmm…I’m on the liberal arts side. I don’t think a university is the place to go if you’re just looking for a job. Expecting universities to churn out employees is silly. Of course, not everyone wants or needs a liberal arts education. But conflating vocational and liberal education makes it hard for people to get the education that best suits them. They serve different purposes and are both valuable in their own way.
Reblogged this on Seni Ekspresionis Director.
This is a great post. We have the same issue in S.C. I work for higher ed myself and see a lot of parents questioning their kids’ motives behind getting a liberal arts degree. I feel higher ed is unfortunately shifting to a place where the only end result is job orientation. Employers want their potential employees to be already trained for the job they want, but that is a requirement that seems far fetched regardless of a school’s educational program. There is definitely a lot that needs to be sorted out! Thanks for posting!
Interesting issue Tara – I did my exchange year at UNC-Greensboro, so this caught my eye! I’m definitely on the side of the liberal arts education. My own academic background has always been in the humanities, and I think the skills gained and developed are so broad that it always makes me angry to think some people might dismiss it so easily, in favour of something that leads more directly into a job.
I do not understand the people who just go “okay, I’m here to get my degree and get a job.” Where’s the fun in that? I’m totally on the liberal arts side.. or even a mixture of the two.. but I can’t see strictly going to school to get a job (and then universities being rewarded for pumping out these types of graduates). But, it would make sense that no Governor would share that point of view. Business is business, after all. And that’s just very sad.
I would feel more smug, Tara, but the governor of my state makes far less than the FOOTBALL COACHES of our two large universities…
Nobody in gender studies or philosophy majors get jobs, that’s like, part and parcel of those programs! People know what they’re getting into when they get a liberal arts degree. Trying to make the system do something it’s not necessarily meant to is a waste of time and money. If people really wanted a job, they would go into business ddministration or engineering. If people want to learn something they’re passionate about, then the reward isn’t the job, but the learning itself.
I know that no one meant to disparage engineers, but I did want to speak out and say that I LOVED my time in college earning my engineering degree. (I happened to have attended a rival institution of yours Tara.) That is not to say that I did not see value in the humanities portion of my education (The History of Ancient and Medieval Science was my favorite class) and my study abroad experience. I obviously love to read, but preferred an engineering course load. I completely agree with everyone’s assessments that liberal arts education should be available to any and all who seek it and that jobs aren’t the primary objective of learning. All I’m saying is don’t hate on the engineers