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

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?

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.

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.

Definition of a "liberal education"

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