An op-ed from the executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette worth your time.
At one point, David Shribman suggests:
For there could be no greater act of cynicism than to attach a monetary value to a college education. And by encouraging the notion that higher education is primarily about an economic payoff, the president is undermining a peculiarly American invention, the liberal arts degree.
Later, he writes:
An evaluation of the state of liberal education prepared late last year by three respected specialists — no romantics, as one of them is an Ernst & Young accountant — warned that “American higher education will be diminished if the number of liberal arts colleges continues to decline.”
In addition, Mr. Shribman notes:
College debts and rising tuitions are true crises. But if you wonder whether college is worth it — if you doubt lazy mornings reading Milton and difficult afternoons in the chemistry lab have any value — don’t look at the government’s jobs and salary figures. In Virginia, where those figures already are available, the College of William and Mary, which provides one of the most prized diplomas in America, ranks seventh in the state in salaries for recent graduates. I bet those liberal arts alumni of Thomas Jefferson’s university do very well in the long run.
Anyone wish to weigh in on monetizing an education?
Read my 2004 book on anti-intellectualism and higher education.