Reality is catching up to colleges that offer liberal degrees but lack the hard real-world skills to secure a job that will enable you to repay the burdensome student loan debt. Similar to the for-profit colleges that offered degrees of dubious value.
With their students facing rising debt and pressure to land a job after graduation, colleges and universities are focusing less on the meaning of life and more on how to earn a living.
This evolution toward pragmatism has been under way since the 1990s, but the speed of change is ramping up as politicians threaten funding for humanities programs to nudge students toward more profitable endeavors. The class of 2017 will leave with an average debt of roughly $35,000.
“The big shift is cost,” said David Breneman, an economist and former college president, who has written about the pressures on liberal arts colleges. “People just can’t afford to be educated; they almost have to be trained.”
The number of humanities degrees declined by almost 9% between 2012 and 2014, according to a 2016 analysis from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. That led to a drop in humanities’ share of all bachelor’s degrees to 6.1% in 2014, the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1948.
Undergraduate students are opting instead for programs leading to jobs in homeland security, parks and recreation and health care. As a percentage of all bachelor’s degrees, those three disciplines jumped to 17% in 2015 from 9% in 2005, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The result is reorienting college life. Schools are setting their career services buildings in the center of campus, offering to pay students during internships, and jettisoning traditional liberal arts majors such as history and philosophy in favor of job-ready disciplines such as nursing, engineering and business, said Vicki Baker, a professor of economics at Albion College in Albion, Mich., who has researched the shift.
She estimates about one third of colleges that called themselves liberal arts in 1990 no longer meet that description. “It’s an evolution and we are losing some of our liberal arts colleges as schools try and manage these pressures,” Dr. Baker said.
Mount Holyoke College, a 180-year-old, women’s liberal arts college in South Hadley, Mass., recently built both computer-science and data-science programs. Google and Mass Mutual Insurance now recruit from the school.
“I don’t know who can afford not to have a job after graduation,” said Lynn Pasquerella, a former president of the college who now leads the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
A set of technical skills can double the number of jobs for which a typical liberal arts major is qualified, said Matthew Sigelman, chief executive of Burning Glass, a Boston-based labor market analytics firm. Those skills can also add about to $6,000 to average salaries.
“Go study feminist anthropology but make sure you’re picking up some skills on the periphery so that you can get a job when you graduate,” said Mr. Sigelman.
Hanover College—a 190-year old liberal arts college in Hanover, Ind., with an enrollment of about 1,100—created a business scholars program in 2005 to teach classes such as accounting and management. The first year, the program had 19 students; today it has over 300.
“Parents want their children to graduate knowing something practical,” said Jerry Johnson, executive director of the business scholars program.
Emory University in Atlanta has created a degree that marries traditionally qualitative disciplines such as anthropology, English and history with math and statistics. Economist Cliff Carrubba, who created the program in 2014, said his goal isn’t just to better equip students to master large data sets—it is to save the liberal arts.
“There has been an explosion in data and there’s a huge demand for people who know how to harness it,” he said. “Most students coming out of the liberal arts have at best a consumer’s knowledge of basic statistics, but they’re rarely trained to rigorously and effectively answer questions using data.”
If they can master those skills, they are significantly more valuable in several industries that are being transformed by the data measuring human behavior generated by email, web tracking and cellphones.
Now, schools like Dartmouth and Denison have started similar data programs that join data science with traditional liberal arts curricula.
Dr. Carrubba’s program requires students take seven classes in statistics, computer science and math alongside their other discipline. Data-management skills qualifies those students for roughly 15% more jobs after college, said Mr. Sigelman. Those positions pay a $13,000 wage premium.
“Ten years ago, marketing was pretty pictures,” says Jennifer Harmel, a vice president at Annuitas, an Atlanta company that builds long-term marketing campaigns and has interviewed some of Dr. Carrubba’s students for internships. “Today, it’s all about numbers and we have a hard time finding people who can understand both the numbers and the softer side of things.”
Isabel Goddard, a junior majoring in cultural anthropology, entered Emory planning to avoid math. But she quickly came to see the limits of qualitative research. When she heard about the Dr. Carrubba’s program, she dipped a toe into a statistics class and struggled, but she has stuck with it.
“If you can’t use the data, you’re at huge disadvantage,” she said. “It’s a whole different level of research.”
colleges do that so before you start working at what you wanted to do and get a better understanding of it so you can already be prepared.
The reason why colleges do that is so that students can get a better underdstanding on the major how it work what you will do when you get a job. This will prepare you so that when you get the job you don’t go in empty handed.
I feel like colleges that prepare us for our intended career by training us in what we will be doing in our career will having a better reputation and have better programs that help students. Students will also be more prepared to life outside of college.
If I go to college I need to research for more information to be successful. By researching and knowing what I want to do with my career it is better off knowing facts about it.
Colleges do that to ensure that students are able to understand on how the jobs functions. This will add onto their skill set and prepare them for life outside of college.
I know many colleges that train you in a particular career. Cerritos College for example has an automotive program that places you in a dealership to gain experience.
Colleges prepare incoming students and the students already attending their school for the career they want in the future. So the students have a better mindset to continue pursuing the career or change it if isn’t what the student likes.
Colleges are doing their best to help students earn a better degree. They offer to pay students during internships.
Colleges help students pursue a better education and achieve their degree. They help brighten the future of america and make them marketable for jobs so they can earn money.
Colleges help students pursue a better education and achieve their degree. They help brighten the future of america and make them marketable for jobs so they can earn money.
Colleges offer job training to reassure students of jobs and their success for the future. They are give many opportunities to pursue their careers.
Colleges helps students go after their career by educating them in order for them to be more prosperous in the future. It also helps them gain a better understanding and better degree.
The reason why colleges do that is so that students can get a better underdstanding on the major how it work what you will do when you get a job. This will prepare you so that when you get the job you don’t go in empty handed.
Colleges, focus on educating their students on preparation for the world outside of school (work-life). They want students to be educated on what they can do to prepare themselves in order to pursue not only a career that pays but to generally be successful and financially stable. I like the idea of focus on skills that are financially supportive, however it is also important that one focuses on what it is they are most passionate about.
Colleges do this so that the students could know how the outside life such as paying bills,working etc.This could help them out because they would already be used too it.
Colleges offer job training to reassure students of jobs and their success for the future. They are give many opportunities to pursue their careers. They help brighten the future of america and make them marketable for jobs so they can earn money.
Colleges give job training to reassure students in jobs and their success for later. They have opportunities to pursue careers. They help kids who will do something great later in their lives to earn money .
Colleges do that to ensure that students are able to understand on how the jobs functions. This will add onto their skill set and prepare them for life outside of college.
Colleges offer job training to reassure students of jobs and their success for the future. They offer to pay students during internships.
I feel like colleges that prepare us for our major then our actual life. However, students pay thousands for student loans and they don’t even know if there going to get the job in that field. They should assure students the jobs before they make them waste money.
I think colleges are preparing us for real world jobs once we leave college. This also prepares students for the careers they want to pursue, in a financial way.
Colleges are focusing on educating their students on preparation for the real world outside of school. Colleges are prepareing for the career they want in the future. They want students to be educated on what they can do to prepare themselves for the future.
Colleges do that so people are not oblivion of what they are doing. Also, so they can get a better understanding of what they are majoring in and so they can be financially supported. In addition, they will now be able to understand what they are doing and to be prepared for their future.
college students are moving away from liberal arts degrees and toward fields with better post-college job prospects.
Students are not getting the skills needed in college.
Colleges want there students to understand how jobs work. Also want to manage their money wisely. And another reason is that they want their students to have a better future.
Colleges are making students prepared for the real world and on business oppurtinities. Thay make you get paired more based off your studies. They want students to work.
The reason colleges are doing this is that they want students to be prepared for the future. So they can help them to better understand jobs they. And/or possibly discover new jobs.
Colleges do this so that the students could know how the outside life such as paying bills,working etc.This could help them out because they would already be used too it.
They’re doing it so they can be prepared
colleges do that so before you start working at what you wanted to do and they make you get paired more based off your studies and In addition, they will now be able to understand what they are doing and to be prepared for their future. Yeah.
Colleges are starting to offer job training. A lot of people don’t know statistics or take it, which is highly recommended.
colleges offer programs to the students getting ready for the real world. they teach them the skills they need to know so they wont struggle when they are alone in the world. they teach them how to pay bills and basically give them a heads up for whats coming for them when they have their career going
The reason colleges are doing this for the students since the college is the last step before facing reality world. It goes from grade school to middle school high then to high school is the last step if you’re not attending any future schools after graduating.
The Colleges are preparing us for our future career. they want us to make a living and be successful. They will give us more experience and knowledge.
This type of offer to provide job training is very helpful to every college students because it raises hope and much skill to every students that he/she can afford his/her own needs himself/herself.
College helps prepare us for the next step in the future. It helps us process how it is in the “real world.”
colleges offer programs to the students getting ready for the real world. they want us to make a living and be successful.
if i go to college I need to research for more information to be successful. By researching and knowing what I want to do with my job it is better off knowing things about it.
Colleges do this to give stucent pratice and insught on what their dream will be like. It gives them a vision of what it will be like to do the job in the future.
Research gives insight and help on any topic of your choice so to have knowledge will go a long way.
I think its a great thing that this is happening! Its true, people cant afford to be educated and its sad. I’m glad that this is being taught. We need to know how to survive in the real world just like we’re expected to.
The increase in college students has brought a competitive attitude regarding grades, students focus solely on their academic achievements, and therefore ignore the reality of its use in a day to day basis; concentrating their knowledge on the theory rather than the execution.
The dropping in the number of students studying the humanities has been due to the lack of funding, they look for an area where they can earn a larger profit; therefore, they go into health professions, leisure and fitness studies, and law enforcement.
The class of 2017 will leave with an average debt of roughly $35,000. focusing less on the meaning of life and more on how to earn a living.
College make you focusing less on the meaning of life and more on how to earn a living. The number of students studying the humanities has been due to lack of funding.
Colleges that prepare us for the career we want gives us a better understanding of what it would be like, and it gets them ready for the real world. They’re trying to give experiences.