Reaffirming the Liberal Arts

Universities have long adapted to scientific and technological revolutions, reshaping education to meet the demands of new economies. But the pressures reshaping higher education today extend beyond any single innovation. While artificial intelligence is accelerating changes in how information is produced and trusted, it is only one part of a broader cultural and political shift.

Across the country, the value of liberal education is under fire — from funding cuts and legislative attacks to growing skepticism about the relevance of the arts and humanities. Under economic strain, many families are narrowing their view of college to immediate return on investment. What’s at risk is not just a set of disciplines, but also the depth and breadth of human learning itself — laid to waste in the rush toward short-term gain and mechanized efficiency.    

How do we prepare students to meet this paradigm shift? What kind of educational approach is best suited to navigate a world where long-standing professions — in fields as varied as business, law, medicine and the arts — are being reshaped by forces both technical and economic? In the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego, we believe the liberal arts model offers not only the most durable but also the most responsive path forward in this new educational era. It is also the most time-tested form of learning in human history — a tradition grounded in inquiry, ethics and human understanding.

It is true that institutions of higher education are undergoing a period of deep transition as they struggle to respond to structural change. Since 2012, enrollment in fields like art history, English, languages, history, philosophy and religious studies has dropped by 30%. With few exceptions, most disciplines in the arts and sciences are either flat or falling in number. USD reflects these national trends, despite our liberal arts foundations and contemporary Catholic identity. Many universities in pursuit of enrollment and financial stability have chosen to cut or consolidate their liberal arts programs.

Back in 2010, scholars were already sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in higher education. In her book, Not for Profit, Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago philosophy professor, described “a crisis of monumental proportions” as universities shifted toward for-profit and purely technical training — “a crisis that goes largely unnoticed, like a cancer.” She warned that, if left unaddressed, this crisis would lead nations to produce “generations of useless machines rather than complete citizens” — capable of empathy, debate and ethical discernment.

Some of the shifts toward computer science, engineering and business are fueled by assumptions about higher salaries and increased job offers. But these expectations are often overstated. If these promises are not carefully examined, they could lead higher education to abandon fields that foster meaning, problem-solving, creativity and long-term adaptability. Colleges and universities need to be cautious about cutting resources or programs for fields of study that will help graduates succeed. As a dean and a humanities center director, affirming the value of the liberal arts education has been central to our work for more than a decade. We have seen firsthand how liberal education changes lives.

Reports from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce show considerable salary variation across majors: liberal arts graduates in the 75th percentile often out-earn engineers in the 25th. While early career earnings may differ, the liberal arts equip students with skills that grow in value over time. Just as important, they allow students to pursue fields where they excel, developing talents that are both personally meaningful and professionally versatile.

Ned Laff and Scott Carlson make a similar case in Hacking College: Why the Major Doesn’t Matter — and What Really Does (2025). Employers, they argue, are less concerned with a specific degree than with the job candidates’ ability to synthesize information, engage in the world and solve multifaceted problems. They maintain there is no “right major” for success and happiness. Our experience at USD bears this out. Students and alumni thrive not because of a checklist of technical skills, but because of our unfettered approach to learning, problem-solving and creating.

Education is not only about learning how to access information and transform it into knowledge. It’s about participating in an ongoing human conversation that builds our shared understanding — a conversation that has stretched across time and space for millennia. A firm grasp of the dialogues first held around the campfire and now unfolding in the digital realm helps us appreciate the value of humanity’s ability to find patterns and meaning in the world. Those who can organize, catalog and curate information — guided by specific and local cultural knowledge — will be especially valuable to their society, community, friends and family in a new era.

At USD, we resist the drift toward educational models that devalue the complexity of thought. Our goal is to avoid sleepwalking into the future by carelessly setting aside a proven foundation. In 2024, USD’s Board of Trustees boldly reaffirmed this vision in a revised mission statement that declares: “We are a contemporary Catholic university, grounded in the liberal arts and anchored along an international border, advancing academic excellence to create a more inclusive, sustainable and hopeful world.”

Our alumni shine a light on this transformative mission. Nick Winfrey ’08, an international relations and economics major with a minor in Spanish, now leads Data Science and Measurement Strategy at the Walt Disney Company. His USD education, he says, prepared him to think critically and communicate persuasively about wicked problems (complex problems with a myriad of potential solutions) — skills he uses every day to translate abstract questions into technical and business solutions.

Karissa Valencia ’13 majored in English and communication at USD. She believes her liberal arts education helped shape her ideas as the first California Native American showrunner and creator of the Emmy-nominated Netflix show, Spirit Rangers. She credits her degree with her ability to think broadly. “We studied media at a global level, which I think is what really inspired me as a storyteller to think outside the box and how it’s important to create culture and change culture,” Valencia says.

Jonny Kim ’12, a mathematics major and now a NASA astronaut, recently conducted research aboard the International Space Station. Within three hours of docking, he was asked to conduct experiments across fields in technology development, Earth science, biology and human research. Reflecting on his time as a College of Arts and Sciences student, Kim shared, “I learned how to communicate and how to appreciate the scientific method, which can be applied to any problem in life.”

Perhaps the term “liberal arts” is its own hindrance. The phrase tends to confuse — and even antagonize — certain segments of the population. In the United States, the word “liberal” carries entrenched political connotations, while “arts” suggest painting, drama and literature — and certainly not scientific inquiry. The nature and scope of the liberal arts need definitional clarity.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary frames the liberal arts negatively as “studies … not in one of the technical fields,” with “technical fields” referring to areas of “practical knowledge.” This defines liberal education in contrast to professional, vocational or technical studies. Another approach is denotative, listing all subjects that fall under the umbrella of liberal arts. The Carnegie Foundation, for instance, categorizes disciplines as either in the “liberal arts” or in the realm of the “vocational/technical.” One further definition emphasizes that the liberal arts provide broad, general knowledge and develop intellectual capacities. The Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) teaches this approach and offers the most succinct definition: “Liberal education is the simple idea of a broad and well-rounded course of study in the humanities, social sciences, sciences and the arts. The overarching goal is to liberate the mind from ignorance and superstition.”

The CCAS definition is especially helpful, as it moves from a neutral description of a liberal arts education to an evaluative one, highlighting its “liberating” purpose. This echoes a common theme in defenses of the liberal arts, which often invoke the etymology of “liberal” — from the Latin liberalis, meaning “of freedom” or “befitting a free person.”

The overarching key here is breadth. Liberal education is not about avoiding specialization; it is about rooting knowledge in perspective, ethics and human understanding. A computer science major with a background in philosophy or a business student who reads literature and engages with history is far better prepared to navigate complex problems and contradictions.

No single defense of a liberal education stands out over another. Indeed, a defense may be weakened when any given writer emphasizes “the” value of liberal education in a monolithic fashion. There is no one value of a liberal education, and its strength comes from the combination and confluence of a number of factors. Defenses of the liberal arts tend to fall into two categories: those that stress their instrumental value (what they are good for) and those that emphasize their intrinsic value (how they are good by their very nature).

Intrinsic value begins with the idea that learning matters for its own sake. There is real joy in exploring the life of the mind and asking big questions that give meaning to life. The allure of ChatGPT, for instance, is that of a shortcut — the easy and effortless production of an essay as opposed to the struggle that goes into creative activity. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein stressed that one should not seek to avoid “the trouble of thinking.” Thinking hard does indeed involve struggle and “trouble,” but it is also enjoyable and deeply human. At USD, we value that enjoyable struggle of the mind.

Those who emphasize the instrumental value of liberal education also highlight the deep joy and fulfillment that exposure to literature and the arts can bring to a person’s life. They stress that the liberal arts foster empathic understanding of other people and cultural traditions; support the preservation of democracy by teaching students how to assess historical evidence and think critically about economic principles; aid in the development of moral character and ethical reasoning through philosophy and theology; and cultivate a broad set of intellectual and professional skills that employers increasingly value in a rapidly changing economy. An example of the instrumental value of the liberal arts is that this learning can prepare students for more ethical usage of emerging technologies, moving them away from the temptation to lean on utilization as a shortcut.

Over the past decade, we have worked with faculty and staff to reaffirm USD’s liberal arts mission, curriculum and culture. We are heartened that administrators, faculty and staff across campus share the belief that the liberal arts foundations of our past are the foundations for our present and future. Even our strong professional and graduate programs benefit from our highly flexible, interdisciplinary and campus-wide engagement with a liberal arts ethos at the heart of the university.

USD integrates the liberal arts across all disciplines through a layered curriculum and a set of high-impact practices, whether majoring in business, engineering, the arts, letters or the sciences. These include our broad-based Core Curriculum (the Core), required interdisciplinarity in the Core, interdisciplinary majors and minors, undergraduate research, internships, community engagement, first-year learning communities and the vibrant Humanities Center. As an example, our Core and Humanities Center together reflect the collaborative, creative and interdisciplinary spirit at the heart of USD. The Core encourages students to think across complex issues, while the Humanities Center continues those explorations through lectures, seminars, exhibitions and discussions that often connect the humanities and sciences.

At USD, our strength lies in a liberal arts mission enriched by the Catholic Intellectual Tradition — a tradition that sparks complex thought, curiosity, conscience and creativity. USD’s immersion in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition is well served by its support for a liberal arts education, encouraging the exploration of life’s meaning and value and the discernment of significant truths about reality, faith and human existence.

So long as we remain vigilant against external pressures that threaten the vitality of the liberal arts — and so long as we tend the soil in which liberal education flourishes on our campus — there is every reason to be optimistic about its prospects. It is worth noting that the number of students majoring in the arts and sciences, on average, remained around 50% over the past decade. All members of the USD community have a stake in preserving and promoting the liberal arts — not only because of its inherent value but also because a liberal arts education distinguishes us as an educational institution in the San Diego region and reflects the deepest responsibilities of our Catholic mission and calling.