“Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job. My administration has already lined up more companies that want to help. Model partnerships between businesses like Siemens and community colleges in places like Charlotte, Orlando, and Louisville are up and running. Now you need to give more community colleges the resources they need to become community career centers— places that teach people skills that local businesses are looking for right now, from data management to high-tech manufacturing.” - Barack Obama, State of the Union (2012)
Much of Obama's plan for tackling the problem with education in America involves providing more two-year associates programs. These programs focus on teaching practical skills required to fill high-paying jobs that are currently empty. On the face of it, this is a very realistic approach to alleviating the difficulty to access higher education in America. By providing cheaper two-year associates programs that equip young Americans with the skills needed to fill the high-paying technology and engineering jobs, Obama is trying to give more Americans the chance to get an education that leads to a good job. Obama realizes (unlike Romney) that most Americans cannot afford to attend expensive four-year institutions, especially as tuition at public universities continue to skyrocket. The argument goes like this: give young Americans two years of intensive training in skills that directly prepare him/her to take on a high-tech job, and the unemployment rate goes down, industries of the future get more brilliant (and prepared) young minds, and education costs are kept down. This is good policy, but it is to the detriment of the liberal arts education. It is also to the detriment to democracy.
Let me pose a question: what is a liberal arts education? Unlike the two-year associates programs Obama is advocating for in his State of the Union address, a liberal arts education emphasizes learning for knowledge's sake. A liberal arts curriculum includes a wide-ranging series of subjects from mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, and languages. It does not provide the skills directly necessary to perform productive jobs in today's economy. Instead, it seeks to stretch a student's mind and to coax them to explore a world outside of their comfort zone. It immerses them with new ideas, introduces them to different perspectives, and equips them with the knowledge necessary to take an active role in civic life and public debate. It challenges students to actively seek out knowledge, to examine existing ways of thought with a critical eye, and to explore the world and understand what it means to be human. At its very core, a liberal arts education is like a human education.
But a liberal arts education is expensive. In fact, it is expensive enough that usually only the wealthy can afford to send their children to study in such a manner. This creates a devastatingly unequal situation. When available to the many, a good liberal arts education equips an entire citizenry with a critical understanding of the world around them. When available only to the very few, that minority has a distinct advantage and can shape a society in a way that benefits only them. Thomas Jefferson once said that “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people”. He's right. A vibrant democracy requires a vibrant citizenry that is both informed and consist of critical thinkers. This is what a liberal arts education seeks to instill – and by bypassing this step, these essential skills are likewise skipped over. This process is already happening. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, more degrees were conferred for “Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies” than philosophy and religious studies. Of the most popular, none would be considered a liberal arts field: Business, Health professions and related clinical sciences, Computer and information sciences, and Security/protective services. Clearly, students are choosing those fields where they can make money rather than where they can learn for knowledge's sake. This is absolutely a rational individual decision given the circumstances. But the overall trend is nonetheless disturbing.
In any case, the original problem still remains: the rising cost of higher education. People cannot afford to send their kids to four-year universities. Liberal arts degrees are seen as useless and unable to get people jobs in a modern economy. We are constantly bombarded with messaging telling us that America needs more skilled workers and that our science and math is lagging behind the rest of the world. All this is true, but it does not negate the void left behind with the abandonment of a liberal arts curriculum.
We are in a pickle. To abandon the liberal arts education is to build a generation that knows what to create and how to build it, but not why. But the current situation is unsustainable, where the rich have access to education that broadens their overall understanding, and the rest can only afford to learn the skills that brings bread to the table. Public high schools were supposed to solve this problem – by bringing a compulsory liberal arts education to everyone. There, students would read classic literature, be introduced to world philosophies, discover other cultures and languages, and understand the beauty of art. Students are exposed to everything. In a multi-cultural setting, students would widen their understanding of the world, expand their beliefs, open their minds, and develop tolerance. This kind of an education makes people who are critical thinkers who challenge existing notions and look at things with a critical eye. It provides our youth the opportunity to inquisitively pursue answers to perennial questions. This makes for more active and intelligent voters. It makes for an informed citizenry that participates in civic life. Unfortunately, by focusing increasingly on standardized test scores, America's education system lacks a liberal arts element and thus does not make it easy for students to develop these essential “human” skills. Obama's policies, while good for the economy and excellent for America's future prospects monetarily, does not in any way fix this fundamental problem.
Many disregard the usefulness of a liberal arts education. But I believe such an education is still necessary in the 21st century, and it needs to operate side-by-side with the "productive" arts. The question is how.