Eliminating versus: Education for life is education for making a living.

Some of you have read Rob Jenkins’ essay in the March 27 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Our Students Need More Practice in Actual Thinking. Jenkins advances the position that what’s variously called “general education” or “liberal arts education,” which is housed in many institutions’ core curricula, really is relevant to students’ academic goals and “ultimately to their future professional lives.” The proposition that liberal education constitutes more than learning for its own sake, that it really does provide the essential preparation that all citizens require in order to lead lives that are personally fulfilling and beneficial to others, has always gotten lots of lip service.

But increasingly notable trends in higher education promise to back up that lip service with evidence. On the forefront of this movement is the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). In the most recent issue of their publication, Liberal Education, Academic Editor, David Tritelli, writes that

…what’s distinctive about [AAC&U’s] vision is that, in foregrounding the broad consensus in favor of liberal education outcomes, it demonstrates that while liberal education remains the best preparation for life, it is now widely recognized as the best preparation for making a living as well.

The emphasis on the word, “demonstrates,” is mine. AAC&U has fostered considerable research over the years (and it continues) that has resulted in evidence to support their claims.

It’s hard to single out particular items to recommend for your reading because there are so many. So I’ll stick with that same issue of Liberal Education and ask that you read Debra Humphreys’ article, College Outcomes for Work, Life, and Citizenship. Following is a quote from the article. She makes frequent reference to LEAP, which is one of AAC&U’s primary initiatives entitled “Liberal Education and America’s Promise.”

…the LEAP vision updates as well as demonstrably builds on the enduring aims of liberal education: broad knowledge, strong intellectual skills, and a grounded sense of ethical and civic responsibility. But LEAP also moves beyond the traditional limits of liberal…education – moving, most notably, away from the self-imposed “nonvocational” identity and rejecting the more recent association of liberal education with learning “for its own sake” alone, rather than for its practical value in real-world contexts. The LEAP vision for student learning places stronger emphasis on global and intercultural learning, technological sophistication, collaborative problem solving, transferable skills, and real-world applications – both civic and job-related. As AAC&U’s president recently noted, “in all these emphases, LEAP repositions liberal education, no longer as an option for the fortunate few, but rather as the most practical and powerful preparation for “success” in all its real-world meanings: economic, societal, and personal.