Myth #1: “ Liberal arts grads end up miserable—stuck in dead end, low-paying jobs.”
Fact: Liberal arts graduates are successful, and happy, across a wide variety of fields.
- The lifetime earnings of liberal arts students are not so far behind those of graduates with majors perceived as more lucrative. For example, an English major in the 60th percentile makes $2.76 million in a lifetime, compared to $2.86 million earned by a 60th percentile business major. (The Lifetime Earnings Premia of Different Majors, Webber 2018)
- Almost 87 percent of all workers with a bachelor’s degree in the humanities reported they were satisfied with their jobs in 2015, comparable to graduates from almost every other field. (American Academy of Arts & Sciences)
- According to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 60 percent of humanities majors report that managing or supervising others is part of their job, on par with graduates in other fields.
Myth #2: “Studying liberal arts doesn’t prepare you for the future—all the good jobs will go to engineers and robots.”
Fact: Interdisciplinary learning is the best preparation for the future’s highly dynamic employment landscape.
- Eighty-five percent of the jobs that today’s students will do in 2030 don’t exist yet, a 2017 Institute for the Future report predicts.
- The hardest roles to automate with the technologies available today align with liberal arts training: those that involve managing and developing people (9% automation potential), where expertise is applied to decision-making, planning, or creative work (18%), or interacting with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders (20%), the McKinsey Global Institute reports.
- Humanistic skills are more in demand every year. According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of all jobs expected to require skills such as creativity, logical reasoning and problem sensitivity as part of their core skill set in 2020, did not require those attributes as recently as 2016, or only to a much smaller extent.
Myth #3: “You’ll never get a job with a liberal arts degree.”
Fact: Liberal arts grads have the skills employers want.
- At least 80% of employers ranked the following skills (typically prioritized in liberal arts curricula) as most highly valued in making hiring decisions: written and oral communication, teamwork skills, ethical decision making, critical thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world settings. (American Association of Colleges and Universities)
- Ninety-one percent of all employers believe that “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than his or her undergraduate major.” (American Association of Colleges and Universities)
*See contact information below for additional detail on the research cited above.
When an emergency arises on Ursinus College’s campus, students are often the first on the scene. That’s because they are certified emergency medical responders, and members of the college’s EMS team. These undergrads, and their peers in student jobs across the campus, are integral to the college’s operational structure, taking on practical roles designed to intentionally integrate with the college’s core curriculum. This approach elevates on-campus jobs from being simply transactional to experiences that advance students’ thinking around the core questions that drive the curriculum (for background, see Inside Higher Ed’s in-depth story on the curriculum here).
Students must also complete an application process that asks them to articulate how an employment opportunity connects to the curriculum’s guiding questions, and write reflections during and after the experience. This approach helps students thoughtfully relate on-campus jobs to their personal and professional goals so that they are in effect preparing themselves for job interviews throughout their undergraduate years. As Director of Career and Post Graduate Services Sharon Hansen points out, “The goal is so much more than transactional, than getting a job. There are so many varying visions of what post-graduate success looks like, so we are really focused on helping each student meet their own life goals—whatever fulfillment means to an individual student should be important to us too.”
For more detail on innovation in campus employment, contact Sharon Hansen at shansen@ursinus.edu.
“Many small colleges are facing economic challenges as demographics shift across the country, and they have three choices: merge, close, or double down on what they do best. At Ursinus, we're doubling down on our commitment to the liberal arts."
Brock Blomberg, President of Ursinus College
For further comment on any of the topics above, please contact Ed Moorhouse at emoorhouse@ursinus.edu (610-409-3535) or Luise Moskowitz at lmoskowitz@steegethomson.com (267-307-6617)