The Purpose of Education

It seems to me that in an earlier age, higher education served a higher purpose.  There were trade schools, which trained the lower classes the skills needed for skilled labor, but for the upper class, education had a broader mandate: to teach the student how to live.

Granted, the upper reaches of academia were reserved for the sons and daughters of the upper crust, and those in that situation, through birth and connections, were assured of a good position on graduation, so long as they did nothing to blatantly indicate unfitness.  And so preparation for a job, per se, was not entirely necessary.  Instead, one learned the classics, and received a deep and thorough grounding in literatures and philosophy.  An undergraduate education provided the breadth, and graduate school provided the depth in a specific field of choosing.

It seems to me that in recent years, the point of undergraduate education has shifted.  There is no longer an aim to teach the student how to live, and how the world works.  Instead, it is all about job preparation.  In a sense, we are now all in trade school.

From kindergarten through college, the focus is on getting a job.  And while becoming a productive individual is certainly of value to society, I wonder if something has gotten lost in the process.

I encounter too many educated people these days who haven’t learned to think logically.  Too many who cannot write clearly.  An inability to write clearly is, I believe, an inability to think clearly.  For what is thought made of, but words?

At a dinner party the other night, I heard a contradictory perspective.  A friend who had graduated with a liberal arts degree (I don’t know, off hand, in what subject) was bemoaning the difficulties she has had in life due to the fact that college did not prepare her for any specific job.

There must be a balance.  At the risk of raising the bar for new graduates, perhaps there needs to be a new standard.  Perhaps the master’s is the new bachelor’s.  Perhaps undergraduate education should be about establishing that grounding in the humanities -- that is, what it is to be a human.  And graduate school should be about depth in a particular field.