[RonF]

Hell, if it were up to me, they'd shut down most of the liberal arts programs at colleges, too - leaving business, math, hard science, engineering, medicine and law - all as undergraduate courses. It'll never happen that way, but it would make a ton of sense.

A big mistake. If you look at our founding fathers, most of them got a classical liberal arts program. They learned a couple of foreign languages, usually from either Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and then read numerous philosophers and the Scriptures in their original languages. They also studied math, science, etc.

While technical and professional studies are important to learn how to earn a living in the world, the liberal arts teach you how to ethically apply what you've learned. The first without the second creates amoral monsters.

[neefer]

"If you look at our founding fathers, most of them got a classical liberal arts program. They learned a couple of foreign languages, usually from either Greek, Hebrew, and Latin…."

If today’s liberal arts programs were that demanding, they would be worth keeping around. I have a liberal arts degree. It’s an expensive piece of paper. (Luckily, employers value it more than I do.)

[sphinx]

A big mistake. If you look at our founding fathers, most of them got a classical liberal arts program.

I agree with you about the value of a liberal arts education. Before the engineers start woofing about the humanities and boasting about the narrowness of their training, however, we should acknowledge the current problem in the liberal arts. As we all know, the universities have largely abandoned the canon and allowed liberal arts degrees to collapse into mush. This is pushed along by politicized faculty peddling various toxic agendas. I suppose it is still possible at most decent universities for a careful and disciplined student to get a solid liberal arts education, but the institution won't help much. Caveat emptor.