Printer-friendly versionWhat exactly is a university education for? Is it, narrowly, to ensure a good job after graduation? That’s how Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, views it. He has made waves by wanting to shift state financing of public colleges to majors that have the best job prospects. Hello science, technology, engineering and math; goodbye psychology and anthropology. And Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, has introduced the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would require, among other things, that students have access to data on university graduates’ average annual earnings. Or is the point of a university degree to give students a broad and deep humanities education that teaches them how to think and write critically? Or can a college education do both? To Anne Colby, co-author of the Carnegie Foundation book, Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession, the idea that we have to choose between vocational training and the rich, deep learning we associate with liberal arts is a false dichotomy.
Read the article in The New York Times.
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