The value of liberal arts education amid rising student debt

¶ … classical era, the ideal for higher education was to create a well-rounded individual. A complete education required in-depth knowledge of classical poetry, mathematics, and philosophy. Today, education is more specialized and more technical. It is also more bureaucratic in nature. There are a much larger array of universities available to individuals of a variety of economic means than there was in the 19th century. Also, the education students receive is more likely to be received in a public context, versus a private school or tutoring. Education within institutions is more standardized in nature in terms of the majors students select and the courses they take. The purpose of education has also become more career-oriented. While in the 19th century, British and American institutions often effectively functioned as finishing schools for the elite, today the emphasis is on career preparation.

With that emphasis and the growing cost of higher education (particularly in America), there has been a great deal of angst that the purpose of a humanities-based, liberal arts education is being devalued. "As universities are beaten into the shapes dictated by business, so language is suborned to its ends" (Warner 2015: 19). Yet the high levels of student debt and the dim prospects for many humanities and social science majors raises the question of whether it is ethical to encourage students to major in these subjects or if students should incur debt to secure an education without a clear plan to pay it off.