Essay

Chris McIntyre

ENC 1101

Out-of-Class Essay 1

9/7/15

There was once a time when higher education, especially liberal arts, was almost an automatic guarantee of socio economic ascension. It would, however, be hard to deny that the landscape of the American workforce and the state of the economy have not changed. With that being said, many have come to question whether a liberal arts degree is even worthwhile anymore. Have you ever asked yourself this question? If you are anything like myself, then I am sure the answer is a resounding “yes”. In his essay, The New Liberal Arts, Sanford J. Ungar systematically debunks many of the common misconceptions people have about a liberal arts education.

Widely and perhaps inaccurately, the liberal arts education is perceived as a luxury that many families can’t afford to waste their money on. The belief is that families would be wiser to spend their money on specialized career training. While Ungar agrees that college has become costly, he believes that “one could argue the traditional, well-rounded preparation that the liberal arts offer is a better investment than ever—that the future demands of citizenship will require not narrow technical or job-focused training, but rather a subtle understanding of the complex influences that shape the world we live in” (227). Seen as frills, Ungar explains that career education leaves out too many important workplace skills: reading, writing, speaking, analytical reasoning, scientific concepts, and collaboration skills. On the contrary, these so called frills actually prepare individuals for a wide array of jobs. Ungar sums this misconception up, stating that he had recently heard “Geoffery Garin, president of Hart Research Associates, suggest that the responsibility of higher education today is to prepare people ‘for the jobs that do not exist.’ It may be that studying the liberal arts is actually the best form of career education” (227). It can therefore be argued...