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I won't disagree with any of that. But our "educational" institutions are far from what the picture that you paint is. I have a technical (engineering) degree and two business degrees, and I can honestly say that I've never taken a liberal arts course that has even remotely challenged my critical thinking. As well, economics I can understand and don't consider to be a liberal arts course as it isn't. But I can see certain liberal arts courses such as "organizational behavior," often taught in business departments, to be valuable. Those clearly aren't what I was referring to however. But let me ask you, contrasted with the truly analytical courses that you've taken and have benefitted from either directly or indirectly, what percentage of the material that you learned in liberal arts coursework would you say actually applies to your work today?

I can quite honestly say, speaking for myself, that most of what I've learned in that way has simply come from OJT, self-education, post graduate/professional career enhancement type of stuff, or simply online learning. Some was also motivational stuff such as Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, etc., etc. I don't buy into any particular overall philosophy there, but I dare say that a couple of hours of that type of stuff or professional seminars, are worth weeks, or semesters even, worth of time spent in liberal arts classroom/study.

I.e., based on my experiences, including myself, relatives, friends, others, etc., the "bang for the buck" for engineering, business, or other specifically disciplined coursework in areas of specific learning by far and away exceed that of liberal arts efficiencies in time-v.-benefit!

As well, I couldn't read quickly or write well at all throughout high school and even into college. But today I do it professionally and am haled for it in my genre.

I've taken my analytical abilities and put them to pen in ways that people understand. I know many people with poor-to-fair literary skills in HS or college that learned later on in life.

On the flip side, I rarely see and know precious few people that had great reading/writing skills that developed their critical thinking skills to extents where they are haled as great thinkers, good polemicists, etc. In fact, the field of players in liberalism should be a great guide and testimony to that.

Many write very well but have the analytical capacities of a dead giraffe. Lawyers are full of that. Ergo, so are our politicians. They can talk their way out of anything, or into anything for that matter, but when one parses their rantings, they are found wanting.

You picked out a salient point. None of my courses (other than math-related) offered skills (other than writing and analysis) that were directly relevant, and even those skills were probably mine before college.

All of my day-to-day work consists of skills which I taught myself either via reading or the more usual OJT.

However, unlike high school whch teaches dependency on external rewards, I realized in college that no one but me cared about my progress and if I wanted anything, I'd better get my own butt in gear. No one was going to hold my hand and help me get it unless I showed initiative and used the resources available and even in many cases to find my own resources when none were offered.

I've never taken a liberal arts course that has even remotely challenged my critical thinking.

Try St. Thomas. Engineers like him because his style is formal, logical, profound and mercifully succinct, unlike the liberal arts crap that most people experience in college.

This is where "liberal arts" came from and where the term "scholasticism" originated. This is what liberal arts should be.