I believe that a liberal arts education is the heart and soul of what it means to be an educated person. No matter what job or career or profession you aim for, you are not educated unless you have studied history, literature, the arts and sciences. These are the studies that prepare you for citizenship and for a full life. Can you understand the world if you know little about history? Can you understand political debates about medicine and health if you never studied science? Are you prepared to understand the breadth and depth of the human spirit if you have never learned about art and music?
I think not. Oddly, it seems to me, cutting the humanities is an elitist path, a decision that students in rural areas don’t need or deserve a full education that tends to their mind, their heart, and their soul.
Sadly, The Daily Yonder reports, public colleges and universities in rural areas are slashing courses and majors in the humanities, favoring instead the courses that prepare students for jobs and careers.
Part of the decision is based on declining enrollments, but the state budget for piublic higher education is being cut even wen the stat’s coffers are overflowing. Governors prefer to cut taxes—income taxes or property taxes—rather than invest in the future of their state.
Elaine C. Povich of Stateline reports:
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Taya Sullivan, 20, is a freshman at West Virginia University, double majoring in neuroscience and Spanish. She also has a campus job in a linguistics lab, building on her majors and earning money she needs to continue her studies.
Next semester, both her Spanish major and her job will be gone.
Sullivan has been caught up in the university’s decision to eliminate its foreign language majors. The school is axing 28 majors altogether, ranging from undergraduate languages such as French and Russian to graduate majors in math and higher education. It also is cutting 12% of its professors.
Administrators say they’re responding to a budget shortfall, declining enrollment, flagging student interest in humanities courses, and pressure from parents who want their kids to be prepared for good-paying jobs after graduation.
“Are we going to revert back to ‘normal?’ No, we will have a new normal,” said West Virginia University President Gordon Gee in an interview with Stateline. “We are going to be much more oriented toward listening to the people who pay our bills — parents, students, legislators and others. And they very much want to see universities, particularly land grant institutions like ours, become engines of creativity and economic development.”
Many lesser-known public colleges nationwide have begun cutting back on the humanities, but West Virginia University is the “tip of the spear” for flagship state universities, Gee said.
Similar reductions are only expected to grow across the country, particularly in rural areas where campus budgets are lower, enrollments are more likely to be falling, and where the pressure for career-oriented majors may be greater. But critics argue that such changes in emphasis will sap states of intellectual firepower, leaving them with fewer leaders and citizens who are well-rounded.
In West Virginia, the cuts have prompted student demonstrations, a faculty resolution and objections from some lawmakers. Gee is unmoved.
“The budget [deficit] was only an accelerant; it’s change or die,” he said. “We are the first to jump off the cliff. I could make a living from calls from other university presidents to ask, ‘How are you doing it?’ We are having to change. We can no longer be everything to everyone. We’ve got to make choices.”
Other state universities, especially rural ones, are making similar choices. Missouri Western State University has eliminated dozens of majors and minors including English, history, philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, art, Spanish and French. Eastern Kentucky University shut theater programs and economics. The State University of New York at Potsdam is also cutting degree programs, including in art history, dance, French, Spanish and theater.
More cuts could be coming. The Board of Regents for the University of Kansas system announced in June it is reviewing proposals to eliminate programs at the six state universities. The review is meant “to ensure that programs meet student demand, improve student affordability, support Kansas communities and help meet the state’s workforce needs.” A decision is expected in 2024 on which programs to cut or consolidate, said Matt Keith, spokesperson for the Kansas Board of Regents.
Humanities courses such as languages, history, arts and literature are particularly vulnerable nationwide. Schools are more inclined to emphasize business, science, math and technology studies, which could lead to more high-paying jobs.
Students also appear to be turning away from the humanities: Data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics shows that the percentage of bachelor’s degrees conferred by four-year institutions in the humanities dropped from 16.8% of all degrees in the 2010-11 school year to 12.8% in 2020-2021.
State budget reductions and schools’ funding shortfalls also have contributed to cuts, particularly in rural states. State spending on higher education fell in 16 of the 20 most rural states between 2008 and 2018, when adjusted for inflation, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute that advocates for left-leaning tax policies.
Higher education funding per student declined by more than 30% in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania during that period. In Kansas, it went down by nearly 23%.
State budget problems accounted for some of the reductions, but in other cases lawmakers preferred to spend available dollars on roads or K-12 education.
Even when state budgets were flush following a huge outlay of federal funds during the Covid-19 pandemic, many states, including West Virginia, opted for tax cuts rather than investments in higher education. In March, West Virginia Republican Governor Jim Justice signed a law immediately reducing the income tax by an average of 21.25%…
WVU English professor Adam Komisaruk, who also directs graduate studies in the English department, says the larger question is what state universities want to be.
“Is our mission as a university simply to respond to market forces and popular prejudice, and to make educational decisions based on supply and demand? Or are we committed to providing a robust and diverse exposure to modes of thought that will allow our students to become knowledgeable, responsible, ethical engaged members of society?
“If we want to run a vocational training program, fine. But you can’t pretend you are a liberal arts full institution committed not only to our land grant mission to serve the people of the state but also committed to modern ideas of liberal education and broad-based knowledge. You can’t have it both ways.”
Rural students can be particularly affected by university cuts, said Andrew Koricich, executive director for the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges and an associate professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. As West Virginia is a mostly rural state, a higher proportion of its students come from rural areas.
“A lot of states are shifting more toward looking at higher education not just as a public good but as a cost-benefit calculation. Then it becomes a value judgment whether rural students deserve the same education as urban institutions and students,” Koricich said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That is, what is, happening in the, universities in my country too, the schools, due to the decline in birthrates, are forced to, slash the colleges, and, it’s the, liberal arts, the social sciences that are, getting, cut, because, the hard sciences of biochem, chemistry, physics, are the, most sought-after majors for the companies, that will be hiring the, graduates, but, the, humanities, liberal arts, are, the mist fundamental subjects, so, how can a country be, functioning properly,cwothout these, fundamentals, but, the biochemistry, the engineering majors are, where the, money is at, so, the liberal arts are, getting, slashed, and, in the long run, this is going to cause more harm, than, have more, benefits.
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A society based on hard sciences without the humanities enables the atrocities we saw in Hitler’s Germany. I truly fear for our children and grandchildren growing up in a country without the abilities we acquire through the humanities.
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Eleanor,
Agreed. When I think of the humanities, I think of acquiring insight, wisdom, knowledge, perspective, reflection. Not skills, but qualities that can’t be measured.
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I also greatly value the liberal arts. I’m a career CPA who majored in accounting and who has worked in both the public and private sectors. My avocation is reading serious books: history, classic novels, philosophy, economics. My independent reading gives me valuable perspectives from outside my immediate world.
But the vast majority of college students – and college graduates – don’t have that interest. They went to college to improve their job prospects, and they just took liberal arts courses because a minimum number of credits in that area is required for graduation. Moreover, many young people who are interested in the liberal arts have been turned off by by many professors politicizing their courses in one direction. I have young relatives – all politically moderate to liberal – who have said this to me, and much has been written about this issue.
It’s a free country, and everyone has access to great books, either through public libraries or by buying books for yourself. Everyone with a reasonable amount of leisure time can be as well-educated as he/she is willing to make the effort to be. You don’t have to spend a huge amount of money or have thousands of hours of seat time in classrooms to be well-educated in the liberal arts.
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I have a BA in French. At the time I was in college, Pennsylvania needed teachers so they allowed people in the BA program to take the required education courses in order to be a certified teacher. In addition, my university required all students to take two years of basic studies including English, math, science, foreign language and history. We also had to take a certain number of humanities and social science courses as well. It was a very comprehensive program designed to help students figure out what course of study they would pursue while giving them a broad academic foundation. After I finished my master’s degree in ESL, one of the things that helped me get the job was the fact I had taught French and could communicate with the newcomer students, most of whom were from Haiti. My background in languages and the anthropology and sociology courses I had taken helped me to better serve my ELLs.
The whole of idea of being “career ready” really depends on what kind of career people are going to have. College should be more than trade school. People sometimes shift careers during their lives, and a foundation in liberal arts will allow them to be more adaptable. Businesses are pushing career training because they do not want to invest in training new employees.
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RT,
I agree. Most students start college not knowing what career they want. Some decide too early. These days, careers change and the one you thought you wanted at age 18 no longer exists.
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By the way Florida has decided to remove the study of sociology from the core courses in state schools. Sociology is a perceived threat to them and too closely aligned with DEI. The sociology I studied in college was an eye and mind opener, but material was always open to discussion without any so-called indoctrination. That’s why Florida wants to restrict its study because the leaders do not want a “woke” or enlightened view of society. They want power to remain in the hands of straight white men.
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Humanities education doesn’t jibe with the ideology of libertarianism (lower-case, non-proper-noun status deliberate here, incidentally), so it apparently must go. Humane values and empathy distort markets–you know, like labor unions.
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This is part of the growing power of an American oligarchy who don’t want to pay the taxes to have a curriculum that helps develop a thoughtful citizenry. The humanities and social sciences are just as important at the elementary and secondary level as well, maybe even more so. The already rich, especially those born into it, don’t want the competition.
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In 1990, I participated in a series of seminars called “Workforce 2000”. My role was to mediate discussion. It was fascinating to me that the participants from the business sector were proclaiming the importance of critical thinking and creative skills while the educators were pursuing action that focused on “standards” or the “basics”. Many who advocate for a return to more robust vocational curricula at the secondary level promote job preparation. Yet, the past decades have demonstrated that targeted job training does not prepare students for the jobs that define the future. Just like ancient times, children who are presented with opportunities to think, inquire, and create are better prepared for adulthood than those who learn to operate within a specific task. Historically educated humans, whether through experience our academia, represent possibility and progress. Discrete job training simply supports the status quo. Abandoning the humanities will create inequality of opportunity and influence. The decision by rural and small state universities to abandon the liberal arts will not provide a better chance for their citizens to thrive. It will reduce the influence those states have regarding their future. This trend of focusing on minimal skills with reading and math followed by a dependence on obsolete job training will exacerbate our current struggle with economic inequality, not resolve it.
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Paul,
I agree. Some years back, I reviewed predictions that were used for vocational training. None of them knew which fields were going to become obsolescent. In the early part of the 20th century, high school students were learning blacksmithing and carriage repair and other trades that disappeared. If anything, the pace of change has accelerated.
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You are correct, Paul. Well-rounded education becomes flexibility in the workplace.
Of course, we also had an increase of the idea of “college ready” being of universal importance during the period of time you are discussing, making really good vocational programs give way to algebra classes for those not ready to take them, and watered down history classes for the disinterested.
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The Daily Yonder is a critical resource for understanding rural America. This report suggests something that has been coming for a long time. My wife’s cousin, a trained historian, actually had to switch to the geography department to be able to maintain his position, so thin were the history offerings at the university. General education requirements are being cut in response to rising cost to the student. Students are arriving at colleges with their general ed courses completed at programs in high school that give dual credit, or advanced placement tests that fulfill these requirements.
All of this reminds me of a conversation I had twenty years ago when we were discussing dual credit. I raised the question to which I have never had a good answer: Why is it better fundamentally for our society that our best and brightest students are educated with half the courses they used to be? The answer to this question has always been a bound silence.
Mr Safely, in a comment above, suggests that there has been an increase in the “politicial” nature of general education courses. There is a reason for this too. Salaries have dropped so low due to the use of adjuncts and graduate assistants, that the formerly status position of professor is now barely above the poverty level in the humanities. Small wonder, then, that the people in these positions identify with many of the worries of the lower middle class.
All of this points to the real problem. We have decided that individuals need to pay for their own education. We have also decided to fund all sorts of recreational opportunities that draw students to universities. Modern universities have multimillion dollar buildings featuring various ways to fix our sports craze, gaming rooms, and food opportunities that create an atmosphere that attracts an ever-dwindling group of prospective students. These amenities take money from the more traditional academic roles colleges played.
All this while my own daughter heads off to college next year, buoyed with youthful enthusiasm for learning and need to become self-sufficient before her time due to her older parents.
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“Why is it better fundamentally for our society that our best and brightest students are educated with half the courses they used to be?”
I’m not sure that your question is valid in the sense that they aren’t being “educated with half the courses they used to be.”
Having taught advanced credit (AC) for many years I am a strong supporter of AC. The very basics of many courses can and should be learned at the secondary (including grades 7-8) level. What is the use in repeating what one already knows? (Yes, I understand repetition, especially in foreign languages and math is a good thing).
As it is the first three years of Spanish at the secondary level gets the student 5 course credit hours. Level 4 gets another 5 (usually) and the 5th year gets 3 credit hours, a total of 13 or almost a semester’s worth.
Now that doesn’t mean that they aren’t educated in “half the courses” at all. It just means that they can continue onward quicker than if they had to take the courses again. They still have to complete all the other courses, again except if they have other AC courses that cover other requirements.
Now AP is another can of worms, one that I refused to teach/do after being certified to teach AP Spanish as it seemed to me to be more of a test taking course than one designed for learning Spanish.
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No doubt, a liberal arts education stimulates
the senses, except for one….COMMON Sense.
What part of common sense, includes the cult
thinking “WE have access to the TRUTH, that
others fail to discern.”?
What part of common sense supports the
belief that a state defined DEGREE, cast a
glow of superiority, over less titled mortals?
What part of common sense entertains
cultural standing based on mythology?
What part of common sense includes
prejudice…you are NOT, unless you…?
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No part!
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What part of common “sense” suggests that NOT HAVING STUDIED SOMETHING makes one equally as capable of rendering informed opinions about that topic as does HAVING STUDIED SOMETHING.
This strain of anti-intellectualism in U.S. culture goes way, way back, but it’s having a kind of anti-Renaissance right now. DON’T CONTRIBUTE TO IT.
It’s not better to be ignorant. It is better to know something. It MATTERS that Donald Trump thinks that stealth airplanes are invisible or that Covid will go away if you just shine light up your ass.
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As a former arts teacher, I was told many times, “Well, we can’t have art classes all day. But, if you name it “Art in Science” or “Art in Math” we might be able to help you out.” That’s the focus. Yeppers, that’s what counts kind sir! True, it is definitely a struggle if one thinks they can survive being an “artist” (I struggled, my son has a masters in musical performance — struggling) but it enhances one’s soul, perspective on all things in life, I believe a “Renaissance of Learning” completes the “whole education.” I have lived the “Well, we have to cut your classes. Go find another job.” Fortunately, I always loved learning in all of its aspects and I am thankful for poetry, music, art, and science. And I was always a problem solver because of it — a “polymath” of sorts. I was told more than once, “We would sure like to have a person like you show our young students it’s okay to “duke it out on the playing field” as well as recite poetry. With that said, if I had to keep physics and math — well, that’s more important than art.” I was told, “Art is a hobby.” All I know is through my art classes it was okay for angry kids to express themselves in a plethora of ways via art and yes, it saved their lives; got them on a better path. They now have a different perspective on life. It’s unfortunate that in my school district they cut all the arts until one gets to high school. Just my story from my trenches.
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I, too, was an art teacher and was fortunate enough to teach while art remained important in Charlotte in the 1980s and 1990s. I often tell people that art and music got me to the point where I also became a good student. I loved working with my hands and being provided the opportunity to do so when I was young helped develop my problem solving skills and love of learning. I had an epiphany of sorts a few years back while listening to a podcast discussing the brain. The neuroscientist, I apologize that I don’t remember the name, in question made the point that our brain is not limited to the cranium. The neurons in our heads also exist in our hands. This confirmed my ongoing belief that working with the hands develops better problem solving and critical thinking. I no longer produce visual work, but have completed many construction projects where I resolve material conundrums because my hands help me get there. I believe if we got back to young children working with their hands, we would have better academic outcomes. It drove me nuts as an elementary school principal to go into kindergarten classes where students were required to spend hours on letter sounds and tablets reinforcing those lessons while their active curiosity was suppressed. Vocational programs in secondary school would be much more effective if children learned to build and create in elementary because the experience would provide motivation to pursue working with our hands. The arts, history, and sciences focused on exploration are critical.
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In this case, Gordon Gee is the bought & paid for Hit Man on the destruction of WVU. This is not some cultural movement catching on like an out of control virus. It is a strategy created and implemented deliberately over time.
Gee is one of the foot soldiers. He moves from one institution after another like a tripod monsters from War of the Worlds. There are others and they are funded by the same deep pockets bankrolling Moms For Liberty.
https://theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/geegordonponzi
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Interesting link, thank you.
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Gee came under criticism during his short tenure at Brown, too. Apparently students memorialized his time by labeling a row of portable toilets as the “E. Gordon Gee Lavatory Complex.”
He left after two years for a job at Vanderbilt where he was paid close to $1 million.
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The key to success in business is the ability to articulate and persuade. Some people are naturals, but most aren’t. You want your kid to be successful in business—to excel at her job and rise through the ranks—have her take humanities courses, read a lot, write a lot. Also acting or speech courses. “Business” majors in undergrad are a massive waste of time.
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My university required two years of study in a foreign language. The business majors were “fish out of water” and suffered the most. I tutored many of them including a couple of my cousins. My husband has a BS and MS in business, but he also has a natural curiosity about the world. We complement each other. He has talents I don’t possess and vice versa.
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xoxox
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While it’s valuable to learn some accounting–to know how to draw up a P&L and read financial statements–those things can be learned with a course or two, but you are right: a LOT of doing business is STORYTELLING and ACTING and SPEECHMAKING. This was one of many things that David Coleman, appointed by Bill Gates Decider for Us All in K-12 education, failed to understand. Here:
What Makes Humans Human? The Many Uses of Storytelling
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And, agreeing with you emphatically, I can think of no better preparation for studying law than to take an undergraduate degree with a concentration in philosophy, which is, these days, in England and the United States, primarily analytical philosophy with heavy emphasis on epistemology.
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I crammed Bertrand Russell’s history of philosophy instead!
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A great if idiosyncratic book, that one!
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Very readable, and so much of Russell’s personality in it.
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Oh yes! I highly recommend this book. However, with the caveat that these philosophers are seen through Russell’s powerful and sometimes distorting lens. As a general introduction to and survey of philosophy, however, it has few equals. Even when he is wrong he’s worth reading.
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We don’t need no stinkin’ ferin languages!!!
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¿Qué?
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The wide disparity among state support for their public colleges was brought home for me in 2009, when my twins began college. One was at the University of New Hampshire, where the state reduced its contribution by 30%, due to the economic crisis. The other was at the University of Vermont, where the state increased its contribution by 30%, due to the economic crisis.
One state values a well educated populace, the other does not.
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haaaaa!!!!!
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Long ago, I studied English because I thought I would be an English professor. I became disillusioned with that for ignorant reasons (witnessing academic infighting; the lack of jobs for English professors at the time). But it turned out that that liberal arts degree and my independent passion for painting and drawing were the tickets to a great career as a writer, editor, and designer. I made a lot more than most of the folks who studied computer science did. You want someone who can think a problem through in all its intricate detail? Someone, for example, to run that quality control department? Hire an MA or PhD in philosophy. You will be glad you did.
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If you cut humanities, not only are you destroying the nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all citizens are created equal; you are throwing graduates under the bus. “The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs.” https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-09/science-jobs-technology-stem-majors
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The irony is that those STEM majors MAY lead to high-paying jobs, but also can lead to unemployment, as tech companies constantly lay off, downsize, and outsource. My electrical engineer brother was out of work for a year until just recently.
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