'Degrees for What Jobs?' Wrong Question, Wrong Answers - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

'Degrees for What Jobs?' Wrong Question, Wrong Answers - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education: "As the report of the governors group observes, the deep economic trends are 'rapid globalization, accelerating innovation, and relentless competition.' This is precisely why employers, in survey after survey, including those referenced in the report, express their desire for colleges and universities to place more emphasis on cross-disciplinary intellectual skills and on providing students with the broad knowledge base necessary to understand the complex contexts in which they will work. What new employees too often lack, business leaders complain, are the skills and abilities that enable them to continue learning on the job.


Given these data, the governors association is looking backward rather than forward when it urges priority for degree programs that are directly linked to specific 'high-demand jobs...

This country owes its greatness to precisely this rich mix of liberal and practical education, leavened with a strong recognition that education's first duty is to democracy. As they make prescriptions for the future, the governors' advisers would do well to read some history—while it's still being taught.

Carol Geary Schneider is president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities..'"