Liberal Arts Education

The liberal arts have been the foundation of higher learning since ancient times. But liberal education has changed over the last century, as colleges have increasingly offered more career-oriented programs like business and communications. Advocates of change argue that students should have the option to choose a more practical education. But critics say that career-oriented study is only valuable when accompanied by a grounding in liberal arts subjects like history, literature and the natural sciences. At the same time, many educators say that liberal education should focus primarily on the Western tradition, upon which American society is grounded. But another school of thought contends that liberal learning should embrace all the cultures of the world and not focus exclusively on the West.