ProGolferWannabe
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2012
- Messages
- 141
I thought I would take a minute to share our family's experiences with our kids' decisions to attend small private liberal arts colleges and major in traditional liberal arts programs---e.g. history, psychology. While the sample size is admittedly small (my two kids) their experience helped to reinforce my belief that there is value in a liberal arts education both intrinsic, and economic.
Both kids were decent high school students, though not exceptional---top 10% of their class, decent extracurricular activities, etc. They applied to a number of better known private universities--got into a few of those schools with no merit based aid. Based on our income/assets, no need-based aid was awarded. In general, the price of these schools (room/board/tuition/fees/books/travel) averaged upwards of $50K per year. The kids also applied to some smaller, and definitely lesser known liberal arts colleges, but all were certainly able to provide a strong college education. All of these smaller schools offered the kids significant merit based aid---I think they have to in order to attract kids of with higher academic credentials. In our case, it meant that the four year cost of school for each child was about $100K all in. We had put aside enough money to fund this without taking out loans, remortgaging the house, etc.
Obviously, you never know what would have happened if the kids had gone to larger state schools, or spent two years at a community college and then transferred, but our kids genuinely excelled while in school. In my mind, a big part of this was the smaller classes that were a part of their curriculum. Very few classes ever had more than 15 students (a few of the introductory ones were larger). They got a lot of attention, and had access to all of their instructors who were professors not graduate students, and the profs seemed to be focused on teaching as opposed to research. Having said that, the Professors did do research, and both kids did had the opportunity to work directly with their professors in doing that research. With my kids, I suspect that would not have happened at a larger institution.
In terms of the quality of their education, that is hard to quantify. I can make some subjective evaluations, and say that I am impressed with the breadth of knowledge the kids acquired in schools. They are conversant in a large number of subject, are able to think critically and express their thoughts very clearly both verbally and in writing. I like the fact they know about the House of Medici, and have an understanding of basic physics. Are these things marketable? Directly, no, but I still think there is a value/worth in knowing these things---being cognizant of history and understanding how the world around us works.
At graduation, both kids had job offers--"real" jobs with benefits (shockingly one even has a pension). The salaries were certainly not what a Chemical Engineering (or other STEM) major would have received, but they are earning enough to live on their own (by that I mean not in mom and dad's house--they both have roommates), and have a foot in the door with companies that have a career track, and should allow them to gain some professional experience and increase their future marketability. Could they have chosen majors which would have resulted in higher career earning---absolutely "yes", but neither of them had that calling. Could they have gotten these jobs without a college education---hard to say. I think the answer is "no" but I could be wrong. In my kids case, I think their liberal arts college curriculums helped to improve their communication and analysis skills, and I have to believe that made at least some positive impression on their employers.
So, on the whole, I was pretty happy how things worked out. While they were in school, I was honestly, a bit dubious that they would be able to find work with just their BAs in "touchy feely" fields, but I was apparently wrong. So, I am not yet ready to pile on and say a liberal arts degree is useless---kind of gives me some hope that liberal arts are still viable.
Both kids were decent high school students, though not exceptional---top 10% of their class, decent extracurricular activities, etc. They applied to a number of better known private universities--got into a few of those schools with no merit based aid. Based on our income/assets, no need-based aid was awarded. In general, the price of these schools (room/board/tuition/fees/books/travel) averaged upwards of $50K per year. The kids also applied to some smaller, and definitely lesser known liberal arts colleges, but all were certainly able to provide a strong college education. All of these smaller schools offered the kids significant merit based aid---I think they have to in order to attract kids of with higher academic credentials. In our case, it meant that the four year cost of school for each child was about $100K all in. We had put aside enough money to fund this without taking out loans, remortgaging the house, etc.
Obviously, you never know what would have happened if the kids had gone to larger state schools, or spent two years at a community college and then transferred, but our kids genuinely excelled while in school. In my mind, a big part of this was the smaller classes that were a part of their curriculum. Very few classes ever had more than 15 students (a few of the introductory ones were larger). They got a lot of attention, and had access to all of their instructors who were professors not graduate students, and the profs seemed to be focused on teaching as opposed to research. Having said that, the Professors did do research, and both kids did had the opportunity to work directly with their professors in doing that research. With my kids, I suspect that would not have happened at a larger institution.
In terms of the quality of their education, that is hard to quantify. I can make some subjective evaluations, and say that I am impressed with the breadth of knowledge the kids acquired in schools. They are conversant in a large number of subject, are able to think critically and express their thoughts very clearly both verbally and in writing. I like the fact they know about the House of Medici, and have an understanding of basic physics. Are these things marketable? Directly, no, but I still think there is a value/worth in knowing these things---being cognizant of history and understanding how the world around us works.
At graduation, both kids had job offers--"real" jobs with benefits (shockingly one even has a pension). The salaries were certainly not what a Chemical Engineering (or other STEM) major would have received, but they are earning enough to live on their own (by that I mean not in mom and dad's house--they both have roommates), and have a foot in the door with companies that have a career track, and should allow them to gain some professional experience and increase their future marketability. Could they have chosen majors which would have resulted in higher career earning---absolutely "yes", but neither of them had that calling. Could they have gotten these jobs without a college education---hard to say. I think the answer is "no" but I could be wrong. In my kids case, I think their liberal arts college curriculums helped to improve their communication and analysis skills, and I have to believe that made at least some positive impression on their employers.
So, on the whole, I was pretty happy how things worked out. While they were in school, I was honestly, a bit dubious that they would be able to find work with just their BAs in "touchy feely" fields, but I was apparently wrong. So, I am not yet ready to pile on and say a liberal arts degree is useless---kind of gives me some hope that liberal arts are still viable.