The Shifting Role of Higher Ed

Using purely anecdotal evidence, along with opening my own eyes and ears, I have come to the conclusion that selective, expensive liberal arts colleges face increasing pressures for mere survival. In learning of the colleges where my recently-graduated daughter’s friends got accepted and are attending is as fascinating as learning of the colleges where they got accepted and are not attending. Dozens of recent grads are turning their backs on a classic liberal arts education in favor of skills-directed programs, experiential learning and entrepreneurial curriculum vitae.

I was amazed to find some of the best and the brightest turning down our most elite universities in order to attend Northeastern University, for example, a selective school no doubt, but better known for its five-year work-study program and its virtually 100% placement rate for graduates. Ditto for Babson College, its pint-sized neighbor, whose reputation as the number one school for entrepreneurship globally, seventeen years running, has made their freshman class the most competitive in their 90 year history. Our daughter applied to a dozen colleges, which, it turns out, is another trend: kids today are applying to more schools than ever before in an effort to increase their odds of getting into their college of choice.

She wound up choosing Babson over its academically equal or greater– yet liberal arts based– competitors, based on factors heretofore unknown to her. A twitchy market, one which she barely understands but which yanks on her nerves nonetheless; the observation of her older brother’s friends working as highly-educated food servers, unable to find work in their desired professions; the realization that a tough job market four years down the road will likely not be kind to those without marketable skills; and the awareness that her bubble of Fairfield County, Connecticut is resoundingly unfamiliar to what the real world looks like amidst the demands of real live grown-ups: all of these factors influenced her decision to attend a business college instead of a liberal arts college. The fact that this child grew up as an accomplished musician who knew little of the world outside of the arts makes it particularly fascinating.

So I started to dig at the data. I wanted to see if my hunches were right. Indeed: the tide is shifting as students-and colleges and universities-recalculate the value of education in light of its bottom line. A January, 2010 article titled “Losing Liberal Arts” states that “As tuition skyrockets and education becomes more unaffordable, students want assurances that their degrees will benefit them financially.” (1) 70.1 percent of incoming freshmen at 700 colleges and universities reported in a 2004 UCLA survey that the top reasons for going to college included “to be able to make more money.” (2) And that was before the Great Recession.

College tuition has risen by 440 percent over the last 25 years, more than four times the rate of inflation. (3) Yet, unlike the trend of those twenty five years, when most students received grants and true aid, students today are receiving loans. Whereas twenty five years ago, tuition at a top tier college or university would be unfathomable at $20,000 or more per year, today’s top schools fetch past the $50,000 mark.

Trust me: I will have two kids in college and one kid in graduate school all at the same time come August and be staring at a number north of $100,000.

The strategies required for financial planning for college by most families extend beyond the scope of this column. Suffice it to say that as seriously as we are looking at the ramifications of supporting our children’s desires to lay solid foundations for their futures, colleges and universities are recalibrating their curricula toward the job market, including tailoring academic programs towards the needs of those corporations who will likely hire them. (4) Writers Roger G. Baldwin and Vicki L. Baker, in their article “The Case of the Disappearing Liberal Arts College” in Inside Higher Ed, conclude that “national data on liberal arts colleges suggest that their numbers are decreasing as many evolve into ‘professional colleges’ or other types of higher education institutions.” (5)

An 1829 Amherst College faculty report stated their purpose this way: “Our colleges are designed to give youth a general education, classical, literary, and scientific, as comprehensive as an education can well be, which is professedly preparatory alike for all the professions.” (6) The Yale Report of 1828 said that the study was “especially adopted to form the taste, and discipline the mind, both in thought and diction, to the relish of what is elevated, chaste and simple.” (7) Both of these centers of higher education attempted to grow both a good Christian and a good gentleman. If, in addition, they expanded their gentlemen’s academic knowledge base, well, even better.

If you are a recent college graduate, or are in the process of paying for one, you have likely entered into this dialog. For it is a very real part of the new higher ed decision. Having just put one of our kids through an elite private liberal arts university, with another one in a service academy (the U.S. Naval Academy) and another one getting ready to study entrepreneurship at Babson, I have a unique perspective. And my verdict is not yet out. Give me about five years. I need to see the fruit. I need to see how handing over hard-earned money to my children’s futures will play out for them. We could have required them to get loans or to work in order to pay for their own higher educations. But instead, we chose to help them out. Funny: a mother’s heartstrings still pull stronger than her purse strings.

NOTES:
1. Valerie Saturen, “Losing Liberal Arts,” In These Times, 8 January 2010, p. 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 2.
6. “Crises in the Academy,” cited in Paul Neely, The Threats to Liberal Arts Colleges, p. 36.
7. Ibid.