Why the Liberal Arts?

The Purpose of College

Many students today attend college to improve their chances of getting a good job and living a comfortable life after graduation. This is completely reasonable and practical. College, in the best case, does help prepare students for their professional lives and broadens their opportunities for interesting, fulfilling careers.

Higher Education, Higher Calling

Higher education, however, should do more than train students for office work. It should prepare them for lives as citizens and community leaders. It should help them to be better writers, speakers, thinkers, and listeners; teach them to appreciate beauty in art and nature; and enable them to weigh evidence and separate truth from lies. Ideally, the time spent at university can make a better partner, a better parent, and a better person.

Liberal Arts, for Free People

The word “liberal” in the phrase “liberal arts” does not refer to a political ideology or a set of policy goals. Rather, it refers to the knowledge possessed by a free, self-governing person. The seven subject areas recommended by What Will They Learn?® represent the basic course of study needed to educate such people—Composition, Literature, Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics, and Natural Science. With the knowledge and skills gained in such courses, students can set their own course in life, contributing to their communities in innumerable ways. Lacking any of them is to be missing a piece of a larger puzzle.

The Best Solution

This is not to say that economic issues like getting a good job do not matter. They do matter quite a lot. The liberal arts, however, are actually the best solution to many of these problems. Rather than focusing narrowly on a chosen field of concentration, students who have completed a strong core curriculum in the liberal arts are broadly prepared for many kinds of professional work and are less affected by technological change than those who lack this breadth. Employers, in survey after survey, say they seek strong and independent thinkers, writers, and speakers, with a wealth of knowledge and the ability to learn on the spot: the exact skills cultivated by a rigorous liberal arts curriculum.

There are other liberal arts subjects of great importance—including philosophy, religion, fine arts, world history, and Western civilization—and What Will They Learn?® encourages students to study these topics and to attend institutions that take them seriously. However, the seven subjects that make up the core of our rating system also make up the core of the liberal arts, a course of study that goes back millennia and which has always had the goal of supporting students in their journey to becoming independent, happy, and productive citizens. 

We encourage you to explore the following reports published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni to learn more about the enduring value and contemporary importance of the liberal arts.

No U.S. History?: How College History Departments Leave the United States out of the Major

The Unkindest Cut: Shakespeare in Exile 2015

10 Things Everyone Should Know About American History