I am one who believes that, in a better world, a BA was worth having for its own sake. Not today. I met an MA in English who never studied a play of Shakespeare. When I got my BA, I at least was familiar with all his works, and learned a few in great depth. Read the Romantics, Victorians, Classics like Poe and Dryden.
But a BA was also much less expensive for me than for the people now! The cost of studying your culture, just because it was worth studying, was in the loss of earning power for three or four years.
A classical education, or a good Great Books type program, can be a great thing. Most “liberal arts” programs nowadays simply don’t measure up. and are thus mostly a waste of time and $
“I am one who believes that, in a better world, a BA was worth having for its own sake. Not today. I met an MA in English who never studied a play of Shakespeare.”
Yup. I got a BS in zoology, and then later got an MA in English(TESL). Over the last 30 years, I’ve been amazed at the decline in variety and volume of writing that English majors must read. Oprah’s book club seems to be about the most taxing level of understanding that the youngest teachers I met needed to get their degrees, even at the master’s level.