We’ve written about college quite a bit here. We’ve spoken about students gambling on their grades, classroom behavior, and whether or not everyone belongs in school. But we’ve never spoken about how colleges are fundamentally changing.
The cost of college is outpacing inflation. Schools build new buildings, upgrade equipment, and bring in new faculty members each year. Hell, I just graduated in May. Most of my teachers are gone and I can’t name half the buildings. Colleges appear to be in great shape. Right?
Well, that depends how you look at it.
Dan Edelstein, a French professor at Stanford, bemoans the impending death of the liberal-arts education:
It has by now become received wisdom: college students today are less interested in traditional subjects, and have become more professionally oriented. They’ve voted with their feet, choosing business, pre-med, and engineering majors over German, art history, or comparative literature.
Colleges were created for a different reason, though. The founding statement of William and Mary, one of the oldest schools in the country, outlined its goals:
… to make, found, and establish a certain place of universal study, or perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good Arts and Sciences …
No one majors in English or classics any more. It’s just not practical when you’re facing a pile of debt alongside your diploma. Schools still offer liberal-arts educations, but they’re a thing of the past.
Students, Edelstein says, want to pay back their tuition right away. The fastest way to do this, presumably, is to obtain a practical, professional degree. The rising tuition costs often drive students to whatever major results in the biggest and fastest paycheck.
Now, there’s no statistical data to back this up, but it makes sense—almost too much.
Look at any senior class in their final semester. Outside of inhuman amounts of drinking, theme parties, and Sam Adams music (no longer a beer, but a quasi-rapper/pop star), there’s one thing second-semester seniors do: they freak out about jobs. Sure, there’s a good portion that will have locked down jobs or grad-school admission, but for the rest it’s a scramble for employment. Friends hate each other for getting jobs. No one can really let loose unless they finally feel set.
I was just there, and I (an English major? Ha!) felt the squeeze. It’s the most stressful semester at school, yet the least important academically. If school didn’t cost so much, would we see a different dynamic leading up to graduation?
There’s nothing wrong with working or pursuing a job after graduation. This is coming from the guy sleeping in his childhood bedroom on Long Island while all of his friends live in Boston. Maybe it’s hard for an 18-year-old to see it, but there shouldn’t be anything wrong with studying another language or culture instead of economics.
There is something wrong with colleges encouraging I-need-a-job-now anxiety and discouraging other fields of study. But they are—whether or not they know it.
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As far as I can tell, this is a dramatically titled article that points out why it’s more difficult these days to make good solely on a BA. I don’t think there’s any reporting to the effect that liberal arts educations have died. Your claim that nobody majors in English is kind of silly and you don’t back it up. Also, since this is a blog on the Good Men Project I would have liked to see this article tie in somehow to the overall theme of the site.
It’s only hard to find your first job, after that generally no one cares what you majored in.
@Lauren. “Maybe that’s the idealist English major in me.”
No maybe.
I have a BA in English and an MA in the Humanities, and I’ve been a professional writer for close to 25 years, so please don’t imply that majoring in English is a waste of time or injurious to your financial health. If you can’t take your English degree and DO something with it, it’s your own fault.
Larry,
In no way am I demeaning the English major. I was an English major. If I had to do go back and do it all again, I’d still study English. The rising costs of tuition are making less “practical” majors like English, less attractive, and that’s a shame. That’s what this piece is about.
At the same time, you have to admit that it was a lot easier for an English major 25 years ago. It’s still possible, obviously, but things are much different now.
Schools are now offering liberal studies to people pursuing all types of professional subjects. Instead of being unemployed and not using their knowledge, they are businessmen who have a foreign language minor, and classes of religion and philosophy under their best of requirements. I think its a good movement to include more people in liberal studies.
As an English major, this made me cringe. My only choices after graduation appear to be teaching and/or grad school…neither of which will help get me out of debt. It’s a sad reality, but I’m sticking with it and hoping that by following my passions, I’ll end up in a good place. Maybe that’s the idealist English major in me.
Too bad. English majors have heart.