Morning Snip:
Value
Tyler Cowen sums up the value of a liberal education quietly, succinctly, and inarguably. And at the expense of “testing,” to boot!
A liberal arts education helps us think with greater subtlety, even if it does not improve our performance on subsequent standardized tests. I see an impact here even on the lesser students in state universities. It also helps explain how the U.S. so suddenly leaps from having so-so high schools to outstanding graduate schools; how many other countries emphasize liberal arts education in between?
Liberal arts education forces us to decode systems of symbols. We learn how complex systems of symbols can be and what is required to decode them and why that can be a pleasurable process. That skill will come in handy for a large number of future career paths. It will even help you enjoy TV shows more.
For related reasons, I believe that people who learn a second language as adults are especially good at understanding how other people might see things differently.