In Defense of a Liberal Arts Education

I was recently in a Twitter conversation with someone who claimed that no way would his kids be going to college for some generic arts & sciences or business degree. That college just was not worth it. He would rather spend the money just setting them up in a business and let them learn that way. Now, I do not know this person, though I have the impression that his kids are not even school age yet, let alone anywhere near going to college, so there is a lot of time for his opinion to change regarding the value of a college education (based on either his experience as a parent, a change in the funding model for four year degrees, or even a perceived value of a degree). But this conversation also really reminded me of posts I often see on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere, where people complain that no one needs to learn calculus in high school. Instead, our schools should be teaching kids how to do taxes, about personal finance, or even how to change the oil in their cars. And to me it all part of the same argument, an argument against an education based in the liberal arts.

I say this because of the person’s comment about a “generic” degree. It gave me the impression that if his kids wanted an accounting degree or an engineering degree or a medical degree, he would be fine with it. But a degree in English? No way would he support that. And while I am a big believer in education for education’s sake and being a lifelong learner, I get that with the internet, Coursera, Yale lectures on YouTube, etc, learning can be a lot less expensive than college. But this attitude still undervalues a liberal arts education.

Let us talk high school since just about all of us have a high school education and our kids will, too. I took calculus in high school. But most people did not. There were 20 or fewer kids in a school of a few thousand students learning calculus each year. There were maybe 100 kids learning trigonometry. Most students stopped after 2 years of algebra and one year of geometry. And I rarely hear anyone arguing against those math skills. But here is the thing, I would argue that school had taught me everything I needed to know to manage my personal finances or do my taxes by the time I had completed pre-algebra, which is when I remember learning how to calculate compound interest.

The argument is that school needs to teach us specific skills. Which specific skills depends on who you are talking to. And that is the problem. There are so many specific skills out there. There is no way that high school could teach all of us all the specific skills we need to get through life. Instead, high school aims to give us the generic skills we need to figure out any specific skill we may need in the future. I knew what I needed to know to do my own 1040 taxes by the end of middle school, as well. Because I had learned to read and follow directions. I had learned how to use tables of contents and indexes. I could transfer information from one piece of paper to another. I knew how to gather all of the required resources before starting on a project. 

Now, some people’s taxes are more complicated than that. And you know what, those people go to accountants, people who have had specific training in tax law. No one expects people to have learned how to do complicated taxes in high school. But I guarantee you, that if you are filling out a 1040EZ or 1040A, you learned everything you needed to do your own taxes before you were done with high school. You are simply not choosing to apply those skills. And the same thing applies to understanding interest in the terms of credit cards, mortgages, or savings and investments. 

The problem is not what the schools are teaching, it is more an unwillingness to think outside of the box. It is mental laziness to simply say “they never taught me this” instead of to think through what was taught and figure out how to apply it to a new situation. Now, this problem is exacerbated by our reliance on standardized tests at the K-12 level, to the point where teachers do not have time to help kids understand how these skills can be applied broadly because they have to spend all their time making sure the kids can apply those skills narrowly on the tests.

Now let me recount my various biases. I have a BA in History with a minor in Writing. I have two post-baccalaureate certificates in writing and publishing genre fiction. I have an MBA with a specialization, but it is not a “professional” specialization like accounting. My degrees could easily be considered “generic”. I work at a University. So yes, I am a big believer in higher education. I choose to work for a University because I believe in that mission. 

It should come as no surprise that I find immense value in a “generic” liberal arts education. My MBA taught me some really interesting business specific bits of information, but I had all the skills I need to do my job by the time I had my BA. The work I had to do to get a degree in History taught me how to research, how to tell the difference between various kinds of sources, how to recognize a reputable source, why I should look for multiple sources and points of view, and how to apply the lessons learned in the past to current situations. That minor in writing (and my certificate work) let me take time to focus on writing for specific audiences, learn the best way to get my message across, how to change my tone when things were not working, how to accept critical feedback, and how to give constructive feedback. 

I use these skills every day, in and outside of work. They were not skills I would have learned by simply watching lectures via Youtube. They required the time and dedication of teachers and peers. It required feedback. In some cases, it required being forced to think about issues in a certain way for assignments. My history degree did not teach me dates (I am terrible at dates), it taught me how to think (not what to think) about the world I live in and the value of asking for other people’s perspectives. My writing course work taught me how to communicate clearly and how to change my communication in order to be more effective. The critique process, both getting and giving, with professors and peers, taught me more about how to be a good manager than any class in my MBA program.

But I only know this because my education in general taught me how to apply the skills I learned in one area of my life to other areas of my life. I was taught skills and then taught how to apply them broadly. It was a liberal arts education, and it has been invaluable to me.