I took a first crack yesterday at Governor McRory's attack on higher education in North Carolina. Make no mistake - that is what it was.
Concealed in his remarks about "butts in seats" was an apparent contempt for liberal arts education. Also embedded in his remarks is an erroneous thought that has been given wide credence: namely, that our present level of unemployment is the result of a mismatch between jobs available and personal skills of job applicants. This view seems to be widely shared across party lines. To correct unemployment, some contend, we need only train more persons in the skills that are so desperately needed.
Unfortunately for the theory, there is no evidence to support it. Unemployment is uniformly high across all fields of endeavor. The problem is lack of aggregate demand, not a jobs-skills mismatch.
Of equal significance, CEOs uniformly complain, not about inability to find qualified employees, but that they can't find employees who can analyze a problem and write persuasively about it.
They are looking in the wrong place for skills like that. They should be seeking graduates of liberal arts colleges.
Brian Rosenberg explains in today's Huffington Post.
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I took a look at the degree eequirments for liberal arts college Haverford (my daughter's alma mater) which can be found at http://www.haverford.edu/catalog/0910/requirements.php. I am very supportive of this kind of education, to help people get jobs and succeed at them, and to excel at life, marriage, and political participation, among other endeavors. Note, by the way, that science and mathematics are part of the liberal arts.
I think one of the most unfortunate developments in liberal arts in recent decades has been the weakening of course distribution requirements. I prefer the traditional approach wherein liberal arts degrees require courses in math, science, history and government, at least at the survey level. Specialize in your major, but at least achieve some level of literacy in a wide range of disciplines. No telling when that may come in handy.
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