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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just looked quickly at the data.  I think what's missing is a control for family income level and additional investment in grad school.  I went to an LAC myself, then law school.   It seems very possible that the same families that can pay full freight for an LAC will offer support for grad school.  If a higher percentage of LAC grads are going to law school and med school, that would drive up the ROI for LACs.  So correlation does not necessarily equal causation.  That said, I value a liberal arts education for reasons that can't be tied to a ROI figure.[/quote]

You are exactly right. There is value to a liberal education beyond just jobs and salary. Some of these less than pleasant responses could suggest a lack of education. [/quote]

The real reason to get a liberal arts degree is that, at least on days other than exam days and on days when papers are due, it brings people who should be studying the liberal arts a great deal of joy.

I can’t protect my child very well from sorrow or death, but maybe I can help give him a few years when he can sometimes live the life of the mind.

Kids who would be going to college mainly to increase their earning power, and would truly never find any joy in studying the liberal arts, or at least in taking some satisfaction in what they’ve learned after the fact, should stay the heck out of liberal arts classes. Maybe colleges let those kids into liberal classes because it’s possible that those kids’ minds could open, and, money. But, really, the idea of kids with no current or even potential interest in the liberal
arts courses clogging up liberal arts classes solely to increase their future earnings in investment banking is offensive. Those kids should go to business school or engineering school and leave the liberal arts classes for kids who value the liberal arts classes.

For kids who do the value the liberal arts but also have an urgent need to make a living right after college, the obvious solution is to double major in some kind of job prep subject, or in economics or math, and to max out on career-oriented jobs and internships. But I think that feeding the soul while preparing for a career is different from going to Williams or Amherst solely because many graduates from those schools make a lot of money. [/quote]

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