H
Hydrogen
Guest
When you have lower admission standards, you'll tend to attract the students who aren't as academically inclined or capable. And when I see most liberal arts programs with admission standards that are markedly lower than most other programs I wonder about the type of student they are taking on. The reality is that we have a glut of Liberal Arts and Sciences undergraduate spots simply because the government does not want to make the difficult decision of raising standards and hence competition.
The worst part about the government's cowardice is that this hurts us economically. We don't produce enough professional grads compared to other developed countries. And we don't produce enough second tier (college) grads for our economy. There's proof of this. Lately, colleges have had far better job placement rates than universities. Meanwhile, university grads are left competing for a few generic entry level jobs.
I am not campaigning against a new liberal arts school because I abhor a liberal arts education. I am campaigning against expanding the number of liberal arts students, because it's not what we need. I have seen far too many friends go to university and take random degrees because they thought it seemed interesting or was a good idea at the time, only to be saddled with student loans and have no serious career prospects. Who wins in that situation?
I agree with you concerning the topic of admission standards - to a degree. My own take is that university is an environment in which a student should be able to improve him or herself. I would not like to see the bar set so high so as to cut off a large group of otherwise capable students from being admitted simply because they could not quite get through the first hoop.
My gripe is grade inflation. In my experience, far too many students expect a good grade for little effort. They expect to graduate. My view is that once you are in university, you should earn the right to stay in. One should show some commitment in the process.
Many programs lumped into the Liberal arts category lack easy measures of mastering subject matter. This becomes an issue when trying to grade the efforts of students, or to determine whether they are making headway in comprehending the subject matter. Unlike other courses of study, many programs within liberal education are not just about acquiring knowledge, but learning how to use it, reason with it and express one's self with it. It's actually a little more difficult than showing capacity with engineering principles (which require considerable effort to learn but are relatively easy to test for).
One reason why employers may be more reticent to employ graduates of liberal education programs is that many employers now demand job-ready workers. The purpose of a liberal education (in the more classical sense) is to engender a way of thinking along with a broad range of knowledge rather than just one particular skill. More than ever, employers don't want to train their employees. They don't want to invest in them. They expect the individual to be doing that for themselves. So in a sense, every student takes the financial risk in their education - regardless of what they study.