The Chronicle of Higher Education is the trade paper for colleges and universities. It recently fired a columnist/blogger who questioned the value of black studies. Various conservative commentators are looking askance thereupon. I want to tackle a broader canvas.
The typical campus has dozens of undergraduate majors, most of which lead to nearly zero careers. A discouraging number of majors are essentially useless unless the student goes on for a doctorate and then teaches the subject at another campus. At the less-than-doctoral level many majors are only useful as preparation for teaching the subject at the high school level.
We encourage youngsters to follow their hearts, study what they love. Does anybody tell them in no uncertain terms that the world takes little interest in most subjects? I think not.
I spent over thirty years on the campuses of several comprehensive universities, that is, universities which do not have research as a primary mission and do not offer the doctorate in most subjects. During most of that time, the only majors for whose baccalaureate graduates there was recruiting on campus were education, business, nursing, engineering, and computer science.
Tens of thousands of kids graduate with majors in Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Communications (whatever that is), History, French, Art, Drama, Biology, Child Development, Women's Studies, etc., etc. I hope they had enough fun to justify all the money spent because they haven't done much to further their career goals.
