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I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. Now there arises the problem of inadequa

I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. Now there arises the problem of inadequate funding for the liberal arts majors. But as it is way too many people major in liberal arts and other impractical subjects. Lib arts should be a highly selective group, limited to scholarship recipients and any rich kid whose family has the money. Treating all majors the same really hurts kids who come from working class backgrounds and might not know how society really works. Rarely will you be rewarded for learning for learning's sake. Major in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. Then your future is pretty solid. Let's stop kidding ourselves about how our society values education.

rluhar 15y ago
I don't think you can count Liberal arts as "impractical" subjects. They may not be "job oriented" but I believe having a foundation in the liberal arts does allow for perhaps a broader education than focusing on a very narrow (albeit deep) technical field from a young age. Maybe some people are better suited to be generalists as opposed to specialists? I don't think restricting a Liberal Arts education for "those who can pay" is a good idea. In Japan, some companies (especially in banking) hire people to work as generalists. They tend to rotate through a variety of roles as their career progresses. I don't think it is the most efficient allocation of resources, but it does make for employees who have a wider view of the business, and more importantly a network and contacts across a variety of fields. Like most people commenting here, I have a very specialized technical education (Comp Sci major), but I actually wonder if my education could have been a little broader. I learnt most of what I know at work anyway!!
- abhimishra 15y ago
  Perhaps you aren't suggesting exactly this, but I don't understand the commonly-held view that those in technical majors don't have a 'broad education'. Most people I've known in technical majors have as broad an education as any liberal-arts major I know. I personally feel that even in the absence of breadth requirements (which at my university are non-trivial), most of my classmates would be as well-educated as they are now, simply because they have the ability to read and absorb information. Students who go to college and get a liberal-arts education often don't retain their major-specific knowledge once they move into the job market and into a role that has nothing to do with what they studied. What they are supposed to retain though, is learning- and critical-thinking skills that make them better at various jobs than someone who did not go to college at all. And that same learning- and critical-thinking ability is something technical majors also develop quite well - hence I don't see a liberal arts education as having a monopoly on developing 'generalists' or really providing any advantage in that regard. Naturally this is also a problem of efficient allocation. I think there is value in the knowledge produced by every field - however we require different levels of supply for different skills/knowledge - and I would further argue that this variation in demand for skills has always existed throughout human history. Since society is both funding education and creating this demand, it makes sense to me that we meet that demand partly by creating the correct supply of variously-educated citizens.
elithrar 15y ago
> I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. We do this somewhat (though not in the same way) in Australia. Degrees in fields of high demand are subsidized; in short, if you take a government loan (aka HECS/HELP debt), you owe less at the end of it. It's a good way to promote studying fields that deliver, but it doesn't prevent those with the desire to study arts degrees from doing so.
noblethrasher 15y ago
As I and other have pointed out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197437 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197437), it's the liberal arts majors that subsidize the STEM programs at the undergraduate level because the per-credit tuition is roughly the same but it's cheaper to educate historians than molecular geneticists. On another note, it's pretty distressing to see all these calls to drastically overhaul the university system when we're not even five years away from what was essentially an economic singularity (no pun intended).
- anamax 15y ago
  > it's the liberal arts majors that subsidize the STEM programs at the undergraduate level because the per-credit tuition is roughly the same but it's cheaper to educate historians than molecular geneticists. Umm, no, that doesn't prove your point because neither one pays their way during college (including loans). At best, that proves that LA majors are less subsidized than STEM majors. If we look at where that money comes from, I doubt that we'll find that LA graduates are paying what it cost to educate them. I suspect that we'll find that STEM folk are.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  You completely ignore the fact that STEM brings in research grants, which the university loots in the name of "overhead". I pointed this out also in a similar discussion. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2799626 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2799626 At every university I've attended, STEM grants are used to subsidize university operations.
  - noblethrasher 15y ago
    Addressed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197531 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197531 (btw, it's an honor to cross swords. You're one of the people I most frequently CTRL-F on any threads even vaguely related to economics or finance)
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago

rluhar 15y ago

I don't think you can count Liberal arts as "impractical" subjects. They may not be "job oriented" but I believe having a foundation in the liberal arts does allow for perhaps a broader education than focusing on a very narrow (albeit deep) technical field from a young age. Maybe some people are better suited to be generalists as opposed to specialists? I don't think restricting a Liberal Arts education for "those who can pay" is a good idea. In Japan, some companies (especially in banking) hire people to work as generalists. They tend to rotate through a variety of roles as their career progresses. I don't think it is the most efficient allocation of resources, but it does make for employees who have a wider view of the business, and more importantly a network and contacts across a variety of fields. Like most people commenting here, I have a very specialized technical education (Comp Sci major), but I actually wonder if my education could have been a little broader. I learnt most of what I know at work anyway!!

abhimishra 15y ago
Perhaps you aren't suggesting exactly this, but I don't understand the commonly-held view that those in technical majors don't have a 'broad education'. Most people I've known in technical majors have as broad an education as any liberal-arts major I know. I personally feel that even in the absence of breadth requirements (which at my university are non-trivial), most of my classmates would be as well-educated as they are now, simply because they have the ability to read and absorb information. Students who go to college and get a liberal-arts education often don't retain their major-specific knowledge once they move into the job market and into a role that has nothing to do with what they studied. What they are supposed to retain though, is learning- and critical-thinking skills that make them better at various jobs than someone who did not go to college at all. And that same learning- and critical-thinking ability is something technical majors also develop quite well - hence I don't see a liberal arts education as having a monopoly on developing 'generalists' or really providing any advantage in that regard. Naturally this is also a problem of efficient allocation. I think there is value in the knowledge produced by every field - however we require different levels of supply for different skills/knowledge - and I would further argue that this variation in demand for skills has always existed throughout human history. Since society is both funding education and creating this demand, it makes sense to me that we meet that demand partly by creating the correct supply of variously-educated citizens.

elithrar 15y ago

> I would like to see the US government stop subsidizing majors and colleges that don't get results for their graduates. We do this somewhat (though not in the same way) in Australia. Degrees in fields of high demand are subsidized; in short, if you take a government loan (aka HECS/HELP debt), you owe less at the end of it. It's a good way to promote studying fields that deliver, but it doesn't prevent those with the desire to study arts degrees from doing so.

noblethrasher 15y ago

As I and other have pointed out (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197437 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197437), it's the liberal arts majors that subsidize the STEM programs at the undergraduate level because the per-credit tuition is roughly the same but it's cheaper to educate historians than molecular geneticists. On another note, it's pretty distressing to see all these calls to drastically overhaul the university system when we're not even five years away from what was essentially an economic singularity (no pun intended).

anamax 15y ago
> it's the liberal arts majors that subsidize the STEM programs at the undergraduate level because the per-credit tuition is roughly the same but it's cheaper to educate historians than molecular geneticists. Umm, no, that doesn't prove your point because neither one pays their way during college (including loans). At best, that proves that LA majors are less subsidized than STEM majors. If we look at where that money comes from, I doubt that we'll find that LA graduates are paying what it cost to educate them. I suspect that we'll find that STEM folk are.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
You completely ignore the fact that STEM brings in research grants, which the university loots in the name of "overhead". I pointed this out also in a similar discussion. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2799626 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2799626 At every university I've attended, STEM grants are used to subsidize university operations.
- noblethrasher 15y ago
  Addressed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197531 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197531 (btw, it's an honor to cross swords. You're one of the people I most frequently CTRL-F on any threads even vaguely related to economics or finance)
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago