The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment

by Richard A Detweiler

Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment.

In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews with more than 1,000 college graduates aged 25 to 65, offers empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education. Detweiler finds that a liberal arts education has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment over a lifetime.
Unlike other defenders of a liberal arts education, Detweiler doesn’t rely on philosophical arguments or anecdotes but on data. He developed a series of interview questions related to the content attributes of liberal arts (for example, course assignments and majors), the context attributes (out-of-class interaction with faculty and students, teaching methods, campus life), and the purpose attributes (adult life outcomes). Interview responses show that although both the content of study and the educational context are associated with significant life outcomes, the content of study has less relationship to positive adult life outcomes than the educational context. The implications of this research, Detweiler points out, range from the advantages of broadening areas of study to factors that could influence students’ decisions to attend certain colleges.

312 pages, Paperback

Published November 23, 2021

Reviews

[Steven Volk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent narrative and statistical account of the importance of liberal arts education in today's world. I only wish that it could be widely read!

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book one can respect more than like. Detweiler does indeed make a compelling case for an undergraduate liberal arts education, and I will get to that in a minute. But the book is turgid and can border on unreadable, and there is far too much repetition. Still, this is the first time I have seen hard data documenting the value of this approach to education, and that is immensely valuable. I'm not skilled enough to evaluate the survey techniques and math involved, but for those of you who are, it is explained in detail.

I may be in a minority in finding interesting the history of higher education Detweiler covers, but I enjoyed it and found it the most readable section of the book.

Detweiler distills the ethos of a liberal arts education from 241 mission statements at liberal colleges. The result is the following qualities: it is non-vocational in any specific way, develops world understanding and intellectual skills, has engaging teaching and benefits the community. This adds up leading a life of consequence, inquiry and accomplishment.

A liberal arts education is effective in generating lifelong learning; this trait was 29% less likely to be found among the business majors surveyed. In addition, liberal arts graduates are 40% more likely than business majors to feel they have a fulfilling life. Living in a campus community improves success chances by 32%. Career success is also enhanced by taking more courses outside one's major. The study also finds that there is no relationship between pursuing athletics in college and life success afterwards.

There is a strong section on the steps needed for career success. Detweiler reminds the reader that there is no way to predict the future income range of any profession. The average college graduate will have 10-15 jobs in their career (I have had seven). Taking a broader range of courses increases intellectual agility which makes for greater success when changing jobs or professions. (I have had three professions). He argues that study for a particular career rarely works in the long run and it is absurd to evaluate educational institutions on the starting salaries of their recent graduates.

All of this is good stuff, and worth reading. But judging by my reading experience and the small number of goodreads.com reactions, it's hard to believe it will have the impact it deserves. I especially wish a lot of people in politics would encounter this book, but I am far from optimistic that will happen.

[Chauna Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A valuable synthesis of yet another solid study indicating that a liberal arts education improves both personal lives (including longer-term financial gain for graduates) and the greater good. Not written for the general public, so the real challenge is how we get parents, legislators, even students (heck, our own administrators) to recognize and believe the evidence. Higher ed these days seems to focus only on short term work force goals.

[Ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a high school student on her college search I really enjoyed reading this! In all honesty, I read this for my term paper on the humanities because I needed two books, but this turned out to be amazing. It was not only very easy to read, but immensely interesting. I definitely recommend this !!!

[Bethany Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book with up-to-date research that endorses and communicates the deep value and need for liberal arts education.