Almost three years ago a friend asked me to help him get a classical liberal arts education. I give him weekly reading assignments and he calls me every Sunday for a three-hour discussion. We started with Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, all the extant Greek Tragedies, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, The Aeneid, St. Augustine, and now we are one-third the way through Dante’s Divine Comedy. He asked for “every word of every page” and he’s still with me, though I was afraid I was going to lose him at Aristotle. We even took a detour to tackle Joyce’s Ulysses after reading Homer’s The Odyssey, and enjoyed it thoroughly.
It has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Exhausting, but rewarding. I’m a retired graphic layout artist, never a teacher. My heart swells when I see the progress he has made.
I appreciate what you said, Spencer, that “You do this face-to-face, in small groups, with someone who cares about you and knows how to give you the right book at the right time.” The chronology of our reading has been in the forefront of my agenda.
I'm thankful for my three "humanizing" liberal arts education experiences, one undergrad and two graduate. In each case the institution and the students knew what the telos was and embraced the path to get there.
I recently went through a season of doubt around this same topic. Thankfully, with the help of a mentor and taking some time to pray about it instead of looking at everything in life like an ~ROI~ report, I decided to go back to school. I'm doing a part-time, in-person seminary program, and I'm pumped. This article came at a great time, thanks for writing it.
I still remember the first time I heard of Hillsdale College. It was on a TV ad. The ad caught my attention because it stated that Hillsdale was a place to develop character. I had seen this goal erode in the Ivies and was happy to see it stillexisted at Hillsdale. I am hoping that the Ivies will return to this goal. Among the Ivies, I think that Cornell is salvageable.
In my college career, I got very frustrated when academics emphasized the non-economic benefits of higher education. My frustrations were twofold.
First, as you say, the universities have proven themselves pitifully inept at orienting the soul towards virtue, or providing meaningful cultural literacy, or "broadening" students' "horizons" (whatever that means), or teaching "critical thinking" (whatever that means), or any of the other supposed arguments martialed in defense of GE courses or higher education in general.
Second, that wasn't the argument that sent the entire lower middle class and middle class to universities. We were told that this is what you do to get a good job. That's why we signed up. If that's not the purpose, then why are we taking out massive loans to do it? We could be in trade schools or apprenticeships or starting businesses or just working. If I want my "horizons broadened," or whatever, Wikipedia is free.
All of this to say, higher Ed has always been and will always be an elite filtering mechanism. Let's just be honest about that. That's not to suggest education cannot elevate the odd individual INTO the elite class (Hillbilly Elegy, anyone?), but it can't do that for the entire population, and it shouldn't try. If everyone is elite, then no one is. All we've managed to do is inflate job qualifications. Now you need a bachelor's degree to flip burgers. The value of the differentiator has largely been inflated away, partially due to institutional ineptitude, but mostly because a filter that lets through everything isn't a very good filter.
Cultural literacy and soul craft are noble pursuits. Obviously I believe that or I wouldn't DEVOUR Young Heretics episodes as ravenously as I do.
But if you're going to spend $50k or more on it, you'd better either be on scholarship or come from a wealthy family. Even taking into account the spiritual benefits of an education, and even assuming the universities weren't fumbling the ball as badly as they are, the ROI doesn't make sense for most people. ESPECIALLY in the year of our Lord 2025, when many of these spiritual and cultural benefits can be obtained in different ways.
Almost three years ago a friend asked me to help him get a classical liberal arts education. I give him weekly reading assignments and he calls me every Sunday for a three-hour discussion. We started with Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, all the extant Greek Tragedies, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, The Aeneid, St. Augustine, and now we are one-third the way through Dante’s Divine Comedy. He asked for “every word of every page” and he’s still with me, though I was afraid I was going to lose him at Aristotle. We even took a detour to tackle Joyce’s Ulysses after reading Homer’s The Odyssey, and enjoyed it thoroughly.
It has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Exhausting, but rewarding. I’m a retired graphic layout artist, never a teacher. My heart swells when I see the progress he has made.
I appreciate what you said, Spencer, that “You do this face-to-face, in small groups, with someone who cares about you and knows how to give you the right book at the right time.” The chronology of our reading has been in the forefront of my agenda.
What a generous and inspiring act of friendship!
I'm thankful for my three "humanizing" liberal arts education experiences, one undergrad and two graduate. In each case the institution and the students knew what the telos was and embraced the path to get there.
I recently went through a season of doubt around this same topic. Thankfully, with the help of a mentor and taking some time to pray about it instead of looking at everything in life like an ~ROI~ report, I decided to go back to school. I'm doing a part-time, in-person seminary program, and I'm pumped. This article came at a great time, thanks for writing it.
I still remember the first time I heard of Hillsdale College. It was on a TV ad. The ad caught my attention because it stated that Hillsdale was a place to develop character. I had seen this goal erode in the Ivies and was happy to see it stillexisted at Hillsdale. I am hoping that the Ivies will return to this goal. Among the Ivies, I think that Cornell is salvageable.
In my college career, I got very frustrated when academics emphasized the non-economic benefits of higher education. My frustrations were twofold.
First, as you say, the universities have proven themselves pitifully inept at orienting the soul towards virtue, or providing meaningful cultural literacy, or "broadening" students' "horizons" (whatever that means), or teaching "critical thinking" (whatever that means), or any of the other supposed arguments martialed in defense of GE courses or higher education in general.
Second, that wasn't the argument that sent the entire lower middle class and middle class to universities. We were told that this is what you do to get a good job. That's why we signed up. If that's not the purpose, then why are we taking out massive loans to do it? We could be in trade schools or apprenticeships or starting businesses or just working. If I want my "horizons broadened," or whatever, Wikipedia is free.
All of this to say, higher Ed has always been and will always be an elite filtering mechanism. Let's just be honest about that. That's not to suggest education cannot elevate the odd individual INTO the elite class (Hillbilly Elegy, anyone?), but it can't do that for the entire population, and it shouldn't try. If everyone is elite, then no one is. All we've managed to do is inflate job qualifications. Now you need a bachelor's degree to flip burgers. The value of the differentiator has largely been inflated away, partially due to institutional ineptitude, but mostly because a filter that lets through everything isn't a very good filter.
Cultural literacy and soul craft are noble pursuits. Obviously I believe that or I wouldn't DEVOUR Young Heretics episodes as ravenously as I do.
But if you're going to spend $50k or more on it, you'd better either be on scholarship or come from a wealthy family. Even taking into account the spiritual benefits of an education, and even assuming the universities weren't fumbling the ball as badly as they are, the ROI doesn't make sense for most people. ESPECIALLY in the year of our Lord 2025, when many of these spiritual and cultural benefits can be obtained in different ways.