Seniors from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, process to Champ Auditorium for graduation, followed by the Columns Ceremony on the Hill.
This blog post is the first installment of a three-part series on the importance of liberal arts degrees.
You may be familiar with college classes as portrayed in movies and television: Serious-looking students face an affable, tweed-wearing eccentric who poses question after question to the class, most of whom prepared for this very moment by reading ahead, ready for a showdown of mental might among peers.
This scenario illustrating the Socratic method of teaching may not have been your experience if you attended a large university. There are exceptions, of course ― think Harvard, Yale and other large liberal arts institutions. Nevertheless, instinctively, you know the students portrayed in scenes like the one above will go on to greatness. Research shows this truly is the case with liberal arts colleges.
Dispelling common assumptions
For over a decade, experts have reported that liberal arts graduates often earn more than their peers. For example, in 2014, Inside Higher Ed touched on the subject, and by 2018, the New York Times gave a shoutout to the financial success of English majors, defying Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion humor that both entertained and annoyed yours truly after earning my Westminster English degree years ago.
I’m pleased to inform you WestMO graduates typically do not NOT flip hamburgers for a living ― unless they own the burger establishment. In fact, the average salaries of Westminster graduates are in the top 16% to 20% nationally.
These statistics align with what is found to be true among liberal arts graduates around the globe. In January 2020, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce reported that 40 years after receiving their degrees, liberal arts graduates earn 25% more than their peers who graduated from other types of institutions. Read more here and here.
Yet despite all of this positive information, colleges and universities across the nation have quietly, out of cowardice and perhaps fatigue, distanced themselves from the term “liberal” in an attempt to appease a confused public that increasingly receives their “news” from social media, erroneously associating liberal with politics.
Defining the “liberal” in liberal arts: It’s not what you think
Those in higher education have grown a bit weary explaining that liberal in “liberal arts” comes from the word liber in Latin and eleutheros in Greek, both of which mean “free.” Same thing, you say? More of the same hippie, free-thinking mumbo jumbo that doesn’t get jobs!
I get it. I have *gasp* six children: five of whom have attended or are attending college or trade school. The one who opted for trade school, at our encouragement, is successful and happy (and would have died of boredom in a traditional college classroom). So I’m not here to bash other types of education or employment options. I’m simply stating the facts.
So how do liberal arts graduates out-earn their peers? Of course Westminster’s solid biology and chemistry programs lead to successful jobs in the healthcare professions or satisfying careers in scientific academia. Likewise, a degree in history, political science or English can lead to acceptance at elite law schools and phenomenal legal careers. Other degrees are in high demand straight out of Westminster: business, financial planning, one health, exercise science, education, accounting, museum studies … the list goes on and on.
Colleges and universities today across the United States are doing what I just did: listing off their successes in an attempt to prove the monetary value of a college education. Unfortunately, more and more colleges are being forced to prove their value through economic metrics alone. But this is an inadequate strategy at defining something that is tangible and intangible, all at the same time.
Defining the true value of a liberal arts degree
For those young enough to have decades of work ahead of you, consider this: At some point, someday, in the job you trained for in your 20s, the technology will change. Your organization will undoubtedly face complicated challenges, some involving complex issues that touch on governmental policies or environmental concerns or rapid societal change. You will be faced with learning how to get along with others who are very unlike yourself. Or perhaps the organization you work for will start losing money. And, perhaps, nobody around you will speak up about the issues facing your workplace.
This is where leaders are born. Those with complex reasoning skills, writing ability and a deep knowledge of history, literature, languages and political science ― trained in the ability to make connections between disciplines ― tend to rise to the occasion.
As a Westminster student, I have a fond memory of affable, tweed-wearing eccentric Dr. William Bleifuss gifting me a copy of Notes of a Native Son by Black writer and prominent social critic James Baldwin. Both Bleifuss and Baldwin loved Charles Dickens, noting startling similarities that contributed to their overall understanding of the human condition. And because of those connections, both firmly believed in the importance of a liberal arts education. On that point, I recently ran across this article that deftly summarized Baldwin’s feelings on the subject, which he discussed in his essay “A Talk to Teachers”:
The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish.
The crux of the true value of a liberal arts education is found in Baldwin’s last two sentences above (my emphasis). Those educated at liberal arts colleges are thoughtful individuals who do not blindly follow authority, and these characteristics are the very foundation this country was founded upon.
Thinking outside the box
In transcending political parties and agendas, a liberal arts education done right creates great thinkers ― physicians, attorneys, environmentalists, certified financial planners, managers, content creators, digital media specialists, administrators, accountants, teachers and museum staff members ― who, in turn, are spectacular leaders, fair bosses, thoughtful city council members, insightful board members, moral politicians and great friends.
In the end, the students mentioned in the beginning of this article weren’t just preparing for a spirited classroom debate. They were being trained to think critically, to listen to others thoughtfully and to lead boldly. That, after all, is the quiet power of a liberal arts education: not just to earn more, but to be more in a world that desperately needs good citizens who embody those qualities.
Watch for more in this series on the true value of a liberal arts education.
Sarah Rummel Backer is the Director of Media Relations and Senior Writer at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. A proud Westminster graduate, Sarah has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and strategic communications in the areas of higher education, medicine, agriculture, and the private business sector.
