I have often heard the vague assertion that a liberal arts degree will best prepare you for a job. But I’m more interested in concrete results. Will it get you hired? That information is surprisingly hard to find. So I was excited to find referenced sources on the Phi Beta Kappa (liberal arts and sciences honor society) website, on a page called their toolkit. (You might want to start with the first post in this series, What is a liberal arts degree?)

I started out by looking at the references for statements that sounded substantial, only to discover that I didn’t find their sources to be very rigorous. (That’s a nice way to say that they looked too vague to convince me that they meant anything. They were only barely better than worthless.) Frustrated, I decided to quit reading the conclusions on the PBK website and just jump to their referenced sources and finish them in order. Were the statements on the website based on anything that seemed to provide substantial evidence?…

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A liberal arts degree will teach you skills that employers are looking for when they hire. When you’re researching college majors, colleges vs. universities, and types of degrees, you will see this statement often. But is it true? I was trying to find some data some data to back up that claim when I came across the PBK website Toolkit. In this series of posts, I’m looking up the references used to prove that a liberal arts and sciences degree will improve your chances of getting a job.

To get back to more of the statements made about the benefits of a liberal arts and sciences degree on the PBK Toolkit page, the next sentence to get my attention with regard to jobs was the following:

“80 percent of employers say that all students, regardless of their chosen field, should acquire broad knowledge in the arts and sciences.^{iv” PBK toolkit}…

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A liberal arts degree will teach you skills that employers are looking for when they hire. When you’re researching college majors, colleges vs. universities, and types of degrees, you will see this statement often. But is it true? I was trying to find some data some data to back up that claim when I came across the PBK website Toolkit. In this series of posts, I’m looking up the references used to prove that a liberal arts and sciences degree will improve your chances of getting a job.

“Students majoring in the liberal arts and sciences see bigger increases in “critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills” than those in other majors.^ii” PBK Toolkit, emphasis theirs

This is something that I’ve heard before, without any evidence, so I was impressed they were giving a reference. But, as a science editor I was taught to assess the quality of sources, so I went to the source….

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The cost of college is unreasonably high. Yes, I realize that by putting the word “unreasonably” in there I am stating an opinion, not a fact, which isn’t good journalistic practice. (See, I did pay attention in a those years of English I was required to take, and take, and repeat again.) But, this isn’t a post about trying to figure out why the cost of education is so high, or what the return on investment (ROI) is for college. So upfront I’m just going to state the “fact” of college cost being “unreasonably” high as a way to let you know which viewpoint I’m operating from.

Because I think that the cost of college, and therefore the degree your earn, is so expensive that it needs to be justified by something. And today I’m going to choose that the cost should be justified by how that degree helps you get a job….

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After reading the book Colleges that Change Lives, by Loren Pope, we seriously considered the possibilities of a small liberal arts college for our kids instead of a bigger, research university. Along with this came lots of discussions and considerations about the worth of a liberal arts degree. And what is a liberal arts degree anyway?

During one of these discussions my sister, who’s an astrophysicist professor at a university, made this comment.

“You know, Erin, you have a liberal arts degree.”

“Wait. What? Chemistry is a liberal ARTS degree?”…

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