"The liberal arts are facing incredibly difficult times right now,” said Dr. Daniel Jasper, Provost and Dean of the College at Millsaps College. Jasper came to Millsaps a year ago from William Jewell College in Liberty, MI, where he led initiatives to reshape the school’s academic landscape. At Millsaps, he seeks to reshape its liberal arts landscape.
Critics claim the liberal arts are out of step with economic reality, that a liberal arts degree no longer “pays off.” The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has intensified this posture by linking program viability to graduates’ earnings, e.g., its new College Scorecard shows student earnings four years after graduation for each major. Viable program graduates must have earnings above the average of high school graduates.
“What we realized is that a credential is just not enough anymore,” Jasper said about Millsaps. Instead, we have “to prepare students to launch their careers.”
Jasper’s plan rests on maintaining traditional liberal‑arts strengths of breadth, depth, and critical thinking. He pointed to research by higher ed expert, Dr. Richard A. Detweiler. That research covering multiple decades shows liberal arts graduates earn more over time, lead more often, and report higher life satisfaction than other graduates.
At the same time, Jasper said Millsaps is moving away from thinking about curriculum as based in disciplines of study to thinking more about skills. “So, we still want students to have a broad-based disciplinary backgrounds – the social sciences, the humanities, the natural sciences, and the arts. But we're trying to start asking questions about what are the specific skills that students learn when they study these different disciplines and what skills can they learn in all of these disciplines.”
Along with initiatives to incorporate data analytics and AI into many courses, Jasper said Millsaps is integrating durable skills, including National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career-ready competencies, into all classes. Millsaps is also merging academic advising with career advising. Advisers will focus on both course selection and career pathways in talks with students. And students will begin planning internships in their first semester, not their junior year.
These changes seek to provide the kind of structural alignment DOE is urging – a direct link between curriculum and employability.
Millsaps is not alone. Other small liberal arts colleges have shifted to skill‑based curricula, guaranteed internships, integrated advising, and employer partnerships. Most, like Millsaps, remain committed to doing this work without abandoning the liberal arts mission.
“We have to learn how to innovate ourselves,” Jasper said. We have to ask, “what new skills are employers telling us new hires don't have” and then how do we “get that into our curriculum right away?”
“See, I am doing a new thing” – Isaiah 43:19.
Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from North Jackson.
22 comments:
All colleges must reinvent themselves, not just those focused on liberal arts.
So Millsaps just realized it’s hard for their graduates with a Gender Studies degree to get a job? The faculty and staff at Millsaps who thought it was a good idea to send their graduates out into the world with a “prestigious” degree but no skills are the ones who need the reinvention.
Do the United Methodist see the changes as positive? No mention of their input into the changes, guess they see the writing on the wall too.
I’m a graduate of a private university and really don’t use my degree at all. I make far more money than most I graduated with. What a scam our education system is.
So, turning higher education into vocational training? If so, why bother with “college”? People can be trained for jobs in vocational schools, and you could regard medical and law as vocations. A liberal arts education is what college should be for. While a liberal arts degree might not be valuable in the sense of learning a job skill, unless a person intends to go on to an advanced degree and teach, it really is invaluable when it comes the benefits that come from studying literature, history, philosophy and so on. There is more to a life than one’s job. There is a place for that kind of education. It’s sad that higher education has become so costly that the colleges now have to train students for the workplace in order to keep themselves going, to justify their existence.
So colleges are becoming trade schools? Why not just invest in trade schools?
There isn't any philosophical change at Millsaps.
It's all about the loss of money from declining enrollment.
Long overdue. I actually had a scholarship offer at Millsaps some 40 years ago and turned it down because they didn't offer a useful degree. So I paid to go to State (THE university of Mississippi) and had a good job and career ever since, now happily and lucratively retired.
My youngest is a Radiologist and the threat of AI replacement is becoming more real. Lot of uncertainty in higher education right now
Hey Bill. I'll let you in on a deep secret...the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
Got a client that makes 125k plus overtime working lines, didn’t cost all that much time and money at colin…getting to that point with my daughter, 31 ACT and crushing AP courses…we’re just gonna knock out the cores at Holmes
Looking at it's website it appears William Jewell recently branded itself "The Critical Thinking College®" which I'm sure their army of higher ed admins patted themselves on the back for. Perhaps Millsaps will proceed accordingly but as an alum I can't be sure.
When I buy a car, "truth in lending" require disclosures on costs and payments. All student loans should do the same. You major in engineering and you will pay the loan in several years. You major in "Queer-Black-Womens, ect."- studies, and you will be in debt the rest of your life.
Require student loan repayment to be secured to the endowment of the school receiving the money and universities/colleges will fix their own problems in a hurry.
The Millsaps campus will make a nice addition to UMMC several years from now.
12:30 & 12:55, getting an expensive, prestigious degree just for the sake of humanity, with very limited employment options, is a noble thing to do and great if your circumstances allow it and you are fully informed starting out. However, too many kids don’t find out what they’ve done until they are $100,000 in debt and can’t get a job.
Does Crawford pay you for this drivel?
Awesome idea 7:44 !
Yup. Like the whole of Mississippi....but shhh, don't say it out loud.
Pop quiz: why does the appliance repair person, the electrician, the plumber, the HVAC tech and the guy mowing your lawn, all earn more money than you do?
If you literally do not know, or understand the answer, you could be yet another victim of a liberal arts degree.
First, define "liberal arts" degree. Then, realize that many who go to college aren't even as "educationally-inclined" or "receptive" as the barely-got-in students of 40-50-plus years ago. Not saying they are all stupid, but they simply don't have what it takes to make use of a 4 more years of education in a classroom setting. Now, a truly intelligent person or a truly motivated person of average intelligence can learn all sorts of advanced concepts if they know how to effectively and efficiently learn and think critically. Such students can "learn to learn" via many - but not all - traditional "liberal arts" degrees about as effectively as they could via "business-oriented" degrees.
I've heard any number of managers/owners say that they can rapidly teach whatever well-paying, white-collar, inside/desk job to anyone willing and able to work hard and learn it. It would be a much better candidate who had natural intelligence, willingness and desire, and a history degree than a kid with a "business" degree who probably was never "college material" anyway. And now, we are on at least the second generation, and probably well into the third, of such students. And now, AI - it is not the be-all and end-all that many think it is, but it can easily replace all or most of the "shoulda never gone to college but I got a degree" folks that became so prevalent starting in the 70s-80s. It's shaping up to be a real mess for many and a real boom for a few.
Wokeism kills!
Who profits from student loans? The answer is easy. The Universities/Colleges who receive the money from the borrowers. Let those who profit from student misery, secure the loan. Leftists point fingers and decry the companies who make the loans, but they love the schools who actually get the money from the students.
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