|
I think the issues go deeper than the degree program per se. Often the humanities are part of a liberal arts degree, which differs from other degrees not just in the major subject, but also in that it is broad in focus. Where I went to school, for example, you could get a math major from a college of science and engineering, or from the college of liberal arts and sciences. The difference was largely in terms of how much of the coursework was in major versus out of major. I bring this up because often liberal arts degrees are predicated on an assumption that a person will be seen as more than their degree, even in the labor market. That is, someone who can complete a liberal arts degree in philosophy with good grades and the right extracurricular experiences, who has taken a lot of the right coursework, can go on to get a master's in computer science, or biochemistry, or a law degree, or MD, or learn the right skills from their employer. What we have now is a problem where too much focus is put on certification. Employers (or their HR departments?) see a degree as a certification to do a particular skill. They don't want to try to surmise these skills from other experiences, or to train new employees in those skills, they want a box checked that says "this person can do A." This I think is the source of this trend more than anything. It's an equating of degree major with skillset, or ability, or whatnot. When you live in a society where having X degree is required, either by employer hiring practices or by law, as a certification of being able to do A, B, or C task--even if you do not actually need that particular degree to do those tasks--you are inevitably going to see everyone want to have X degree. When you create an economic environment driven by rent seeking and regulatory capture of one sort or another, you're going to see people try to position themselves accordingly. I think the rise in interests in MOOCs, etc., and criticism of traditional educational structures in part is a response to this overcredentialing. The irony is that the liberal arts degree, which is supposed to be a kind of happy medium, kind of has been squeezed out from both sides of that argument. |