j.r. leonard

Valid. It's also worth pondering what we as a society are losing by foregoing the broad base of knowledge and perspective the student theoretically gains via a broader undergraduate education, rather than on one that is merely a means to an end.

Why are we "foregoing" this? What stops students from still getting that education, except for from world class profs, for free, at their own pace, from their living room?

Thanks for catching the homophone typo, Professor. One of these days Twitter will come around to installing that edit button. If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that the traditional liberal arts model of education is unnecessary because of... the internet?

...if that is what you're suggesting, certainly people *can* choose to study a variety of topics online, at their own pace, from their living room. But assuming that people will just take it upon themselves to study civics and philosophy seems... naive, I suppose.

Well it seems you are saying that students really WANT this education but that cost of tuition discourages Im telling you this education is free Then you seem to be saying "yes, but its naive to think they want it for FREE."

It's an interesting question... at some point in history, we seemed to share the notion that it was important to have a broad, well-rounded education, and that it was important to study letters, to to speak, regardless of economic outcomes. We've moved away from that as an ideal.

This doesn't seem right. More that, a very small percentage of the population went to college and they studied humanities because their economic futures were secured by membership in the upper class. Everyone else was always mostly getting vocational training, just not in college

One of the commenters on the original post made the wry observation that there aren't enough trust-fund babies studying the humanities, and to some extent you make a fair point. But granting the point, I'm not sure that changes the underlying concept all that much.