Liberal Arts Degrees: The Value of Lifelong Skills

Liberal arts degrees have a bad reputation for not leading to stable careers with good wages. When universities face budgetary restraints, humanities programs are often the first on the chopping block.

However, even with the increasing need for job-ready skills, market data shows liberal arts graduates are still in high demand - and will continue to be - as new technologies develop.

In this article, we’ll explore why liberal arts degrees remain relevant and profitable in today’s job market.

Skills-based hiring and the decline of the liberal arts

In September 2023, West Virginia University made headlines after its board of governors voted to cut 28 academic programs from its cohort, slashing 143 faculty positions. 

Among the targets were all of the institution’s foreign language programs, its Master’s degrees in linguistics, and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). The cuts lowered the number of faculty members in the languages and literatures department from 24 to seven.

The gradual disappearance of liberal arts degrees isn’t new, but has gained new momentum as the debate over what practical skills students can get out of university intensifies. According to a study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S), the humanities accounted for 15% of all Bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2005 but dropped to 8.8% by 2022.

As the labor market shifts to skills-based hiring, employers place less emphasis on a candidate’s diploma and more on their work experience or industry-specific accreditation, causing many students to forgo a four-year degree for micro-credentials and other professional programs offering more hands-on training.

For university administrators, the change means deciphering how to adapt to incoming students’ new priorities. While a few schools choose to slash humanities programs altogether, others prefer to reinvent current degrees to include more direct professional training. 

In many cases, redesigning the curriculum isn’t necessary at all. Instead, simply changing how these degrees are advertised to highlight their relevance in the current job market can change how they are perceived by students and employers.

Why liberal arts degrees remain valuable

Liberal arts graduates constantly face the inaccurate myth that their studies serve no real purpose outside of a classroom or an artistic environment. Consequently, many believe a humanities degree can rarely lead to a stable career with good earning prospects. But, according to employers and industry data, both assumptions are incorrect.

Access student data on the most popular subjects with international students in our 2024 State of Student Recruitment report:

Skills such as creative thinking, research, critical analysis, and communication are the essence of a liberal arts education and are easily applicable (if not to say, necessary) in any career or industry. 

In a YouTube video, Jeffrey Cohen, the Dean of Humanities for the College of Liberal Arts at Arizona State University, speaks to the value of a liberal arts degree: “That combination of creativity and curiosity that the humanities train you to really foster are the perfect combination for succeeding in a career, but also being able to bring whatever field you are in to its next level.”

The AAA&S has also debunked the supposedly inexistent financial value of a liberal arts degree. According to a 2023 study, the median earnings of humanities graduates in West Virginia’s full-time workforce (US$56,841 per year) are 44% higher than those of workers with just a high school diploma (US$39,351). Additionally, one in four humanities graduates earns more than US$84,454 per year.

While it’s true several technical skills emerge and become obsolete in the blink of an eye, the foundational skills developed through an education in the humanities remain timeless and relevant in every field.

Liberal arts and the future of technology

The rapid development of new technologies has stirred even more unrest over the future of the job market, with industry experts predicting that several professions will be fully automated in the coming years. But not every job can be replaced by AI.

Although an initial reaction may suggest the future of the world revolves around technology alone, the reality is that there is a rising demand for workers trained in the humanities. It may seem counterintuitive, but there is one thing AI cannot replicate: human sensibility.

For this reason, creative careers, such as those of artists, authors, designers, educators, and others rooted in human interaction, have the strongest line of defence against AI replacement.

But this isn’t news, even among tech leaders. In 2011, Steve Jobs highlighted the role of liberal arts in Apple’s success, saying that “it’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough” and that it’s the combination of technology with the humanities that makes the company’s revolutionary advancements possible.

A few years later, Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban offered his take on the future of the job economy: “I personally think there’s going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than there were for programming majors, and maybe even engineering.”

Humanities graduates are used to facing skepticism, but by being prepared to combine their liberal arts foundation with technological expertise, they will be ready to become the innovative workers sought in the coming years.

Enhancing the optics of your liberal arts programs

Despite these established benefits, some change is still necessary if universities want to leave no doubt in students’ minds regarding the value of education in the humanities. 

These are some strategies schools can consider to enhance the optics of their liberal arts degrees:

• Partnering with other universities: Collaborating with other institutions to offer joint programs or online classes can help broaden the reach of liberal arts programs. For smaller colleges in the U.S., course sharing between universities has proven to be an effective way of expanding geographical boundaries and offering new degrees without developing programs from scratch.
  
  
• Integrating internships into the curriculum: The guarantee of obtaining work experience during their studies will increase students’ confidence in securing a career after graduation. Reshape academic programs to include external internships, in which students can explore the industry they will enter while receiving guidance from professors and university staff.
  
  
• Emphasizing career outcomes: If prospective students aren’t aware of the benefits of a humanities degree, change your program description to highlight the relevance of the skills it develops. Including testimonials from successful alums and employers will underscore the degree’s value.
  
  
• Promoting interdisciplinarity: As the boundaries between disciplines become blurred in the job market, so must the boundaries in academia. Offering humanities students the option to take STEM courses will reiterate the existing dialogue between the liberal arts and technology, further preparing them for their future careers.

As Katie Ferrick, senior director of workplace programs at LinkedIn, told Inside Higher Ed: “This isn’t about creating some new program at your college but on helping students and faculty figure out how to connect the dots between what they’re learning and what skills they’re gaining.”

If universities give students skills that can be applied in different fields and the language they need to sell themselves in the labor market, they will stand out to employers and gradually change the myth of the pointless liberal arts degree.