Opinion: This Is Who’s Really Driving the Decline in Interest in Liberal Arts Education by [[Jennifer Frey]] 2025-07-17 in New York Times

Frey argues that it's college administrators who are killing off the idea of a liberal arts education. In her experience, students are thrilled to be in these programs and participate in them.

Me: Some of the pressure, also indicated here, is from toxic capitalism which is pressuring students to be only career-focused in their educational journeys. This pressure leaves much less space for the humanities.

Read: Fri 2025-07-18 7:13 PM Updated: 2025-07-19

I would be lucky, I felt, merely to fail in accounting course. More likely, I would turn my participation in such a course. Into a felony. Accounting had to be avoided, but how? Something called the liberal arts, I learned, excluded accounting. As for what they included, I had no idea. But whatever it was, I felt that I had a shot at it. I signed up.

https://classicalliberalarts.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@classicalliberalarts/videos

Snyder, Christopher A. “A Liberal Education in Name Only.” Inside Higher Ed (blog), October 23, 2023. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/23/liberal-education-name-only-opinion.

read Mon 10/23/2023 7:37 PM

reply to Our Journey, Day 84 by Dan Allosso at https://danallosso.substack.com/p/our-journey-day-84

There's already a movement afoot calling for schools who are dramatically cutting their humanities departments to quit calling what they're offering a liberal education. This popped up on Monday and has a long list of cuts: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/23/liberal-education-name-only-opinion I was surprised that Bemidji wasn't listed, but then again there may be several dozens which have made announcements, but which aren't widely known yet. The problem may be much larger and broader than anyone is acknowledging.

Cutting down dozens of faculties into either "schools" or even into some sort of catch all called "Humanities" may be even more marginalizing to the enterprise.

Apparently, the Morlocks seem to think that the Eloi will be easier to manage if there isn't any critical thinking?

Graeber and Wengrow seem to indicate otherwise.

Uncommon use of "liberal artist" as one who uses or practices the liberal arts.

Ferguson, Niall. “I’m Helping to Start a New College Because Higher Ed Is Broken.” Bloomberg.Com, November 8, 2021, sec. Opinion. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-11-08/niall-ferguson-america-s-woke-universities-need-to-be-replaced.

Seems like a lot of cherry picking here... also don't see much evidence of progress in a year and change.

Only four jobs listed on their website today: https://jobs.lever.co/uaustin. Note all are for administration and none for teaching. Most have a heavy fundraising component.

Hugh of St. Victor wrote Didascalicon, a text about what topics should be learned and why. In it, he outlined seven mechanical arts (or technologies) in analogy with the seven liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium) as ways to repair the weaknesses inherit in humanity.

These seven mechanical arts he defines are: - fabric making - armament - commerce - agriculture - hunting - medicine - theatrics

Hugh of St. Victor's description of the mechanical art of commerce here is fascinating. He says "reconciles nations, calms wars, strengthens peace, and turns the private good of individuals into a benefit for all" (doublcheck the original quotation, context, and source). This sounds eerily familiar to the common statement in the United States about trade and commerce.

Link this to the quote from Albie Duncan in The West Wing (season 5?) about trade.

Other places where this sentiment occurs?

Is Hugh of St. Victor the first in history to state this sentiment?

Seems like a fundamental tension in education generally and the liberal arts and sciences in particular. The balance between wide-ranging creativity and mastery of content and skill isn't simple.

This could've been a good place to allow liberal arts folx some point of entry. Alas.

This is exactly the intersection that I have seen and thought about for a long time. If David Perell sees this as a gap that intellectuals can fill, then I am definitely onto something.

At the suggestion of Leibniz, parts of Europe began adopting Chinese models of statecraft which had not previously been known or used in Europe.

Definition of a "liberal education"

I would like you to focus on:

• The main ideas in the article
• The underlined vocabulary words and any new words to you
• New structures that you could start using in your writing Make sure you write notes including your impression, definitions of words or any questions you might have on the text.

Amen!

Interesting. Not critical, not liberal arts, enough.

I'm somewhat optimistic about this. Of it actually happens...

I could not agree more, but we also need to think about how precisely our curriculum is cultivating habits of respect, empathy, and humility. What specific courses facilitate these virtues, what sorts of assignments ensure they are practiced?

This is exactly right. I've been thematizing it in terms of "ethical imagination."