"Is college worth it" (WTF NO TITLE CASE!?) by Leocadia Zak (2026)

 

 Got this month's Rotary Magazine and it had a liberal education essay in it that was decent. Just gonna pull a few quotes to talk about a little tonight since I can't find a digital version.

A liberal arts education is sometimes misunderstood as a preparation for nothing in particular. In fact, it is a preparation for everything.  Its core purpose is not to load students with specialized information but to cultivate habits of mind: critical thinking, ethical reasoning, clear communication, and above all, adaptability.

90% of the classes I took in undergrad were, at best, about as informative as reading a Wikipedia article, despite spending 40 hours (plus homework) and thousands of dollars on each one. Most of them were a decade out of date on specifics before syllabus week, and wouldn't touch anything involving thinking with a ten foot pole. The idea of learning anything that'd be useful in real life, versus just paying a bunch of money and jumping through hoops to get a shiny piece of paper, is what 20 year old me was starving for. 

People who can think across disciplines, communicate across differences, and lead through ambiguity.

I think the middle one is the most interesting here. I think (especially in education) the goal is too often to find fault in difference, rather than understand and communicate across them.

I often tell students that higher education is the beginning of a way of living. The habits of inquiry, the openness to difference, the intellectual courage to change one's mind when the evidence demands it -- these do not expire at graduation.

I think these are habits we should be instilling not just in higher ed, but all the way back to elementary. Little kids are curious, build on that. They have mixed feelings on difference, but if you wait until they're 18 to work on it you've already given a lot of time for bad habits to crystalize. They have a lot of weird opinions on stuff, and they're going to change often. Let them know that's a good thing to do.

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