What’s the purpose of college: A job or an education? (Education)

As the price of college has skyrocketed and tens of thousands of recent graduates have found themselves on the unemployment line or stuck in jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree, higher education has come under attack for its failure to make students job-ready. Adding fuel to the debate is a series of what seem to be monthly surveys showing a wide gapbetween what employers want out of today’s college graduates and what schools are producing. 

It all begs the question: Is it solely a college’s responsibility to make students job-ready?

College was once seen as a place where adolescents went to explore courses and majors before settling on a job and career, often well after graduating. 

Since then, in both their attitudes and in their choice of majors, college students have increasingly seen a bachelor’s degree as a means to an end: a job. 

The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in traditional arts and sciences fields (English, math, and biology, for example) has tumbled from almost half of the undergraduate credentials awarded in 1968 to about a quarter now. The majority of credentials today are awarded in occupational or vocational areas such as education and communications or, more recently, sports management and computer-game design. The most popular undergraduate major is business.

Students and their families, faced with big tuition bills, want to be sure to pick a major that leads to a job after graduation. Colleges worried about filling seats have accommodated them by rolling out a bevy of practical majors, some in fields that didn’t even exist five years ago (think of a bachelor’s degree in Social Media, or perhaps even a master’s).

Such trends worry those who advocate liberal arts studies and the idea that college should be a place to develop a foundational knowledge that provides lifetime benefits. 

It seems everyone is nostalgic for an earlier era of higher education. But those were also the days when an entire tuition bill could be paid by working odd jobs during the summer. That’s no longer the case. Those tuition bills have gone way up, and so too have our expectations for how much we think colleges should do to prepare students for the job market.