Posted: 02/14/07

What students want

Jake Dubuque | contributing columnist
jdubuque@smcvt.edu

The sticker price for a St. Michael’s education is $149,620. For that amount of money you can buy a Porche 911 Turbo (with tax). Instead, if you put that in a money market account, right now you could earn 4.5% per annum – which over four years earns you $27,000. Or for $150,000 there’s a one bedroom apartment on Main Street in Burlington currently advertised that would earn you about $42,000 over four years. If you had invested that amount of money last year in the Dow Jones index fund, you would have made about $21,900, if stock market performed at the same rate for four years, that’s $87,600. So what does a St. Michael’s education earn you?

A liberal arts education teaches you how to learn. It adds the world to your degree. It prepares you for graduate school. A degree in political science increases your civic awareness. Philosophy expands your critical reasoning. A degree in fine arts gives you a greater understanding of the arts. These esoteric statements are so lofty that there’s no way you can attach a number to it. A St. Michael’s education isn’t the same thing as those other investments. Not really. Well, probably not. I hope not. Is it?

If students aren’t approaching their education as an investment, then they should. Whether we like it or not, whether we are paying sticker price our not, we are investing in our future. That’s not an esoteric statement, that’s pragmatic. Students expect (or should expect) a return on their $150,000 investment.

As the school ramps up discussion on how best to change the liberal studies requirements, everyone would be wise to keep the framework of investment in mind. A liberal arts education is an investment, and like any investment it provides a return. So as we prepare to change the investment for the better, we are looking for a better return, not just something that’s more convenient or more culturally appealing.

At this point everything’s on the table. Take the language requirement. If we are looking to make the Liberal Studies Requirements (LSRs) more convenient, then throw the language requirement on the chopping block. If we are trying to culture students and encourage experiences that they would not choose on their own – then a two course requirement is probably fine as it is. But if we are trying to increase the return on investment – maybe requiring a true proficiency in a second language will earn a greater return in the job market. The current president said as much last week at an admissions dinner.

We could decide that the study abroad experience was such a great investment that we offered an academic incentive to go. Maybe just spending a semester in a foreign country could count for the culture and civilization requirement and the social science requirement. Or if you go abroad you are allowed to drop any one requirement. Think of the possibilities.

Perhaps the current structure of the LSRs is outmoded. One possible structure would be a thematic approach where students could choose from an “ethics,” or a “global citizen,” or a “logic” curriculum. While each theme would still utilize most of the departments, it would give the LSRs a more cohesive identity. It would also allow students to choose a set of requirements that may be more applicable to their major, and what field they want to enter after graduation.

Whether you think of big changes or small changes, don’t leave all the thinking to the administration or faculty. Students are uniquely situated to provide feedback on the LSRs and what kind of investment we are looking for. The problem, of course, is motivation. Unlike the administration and the faculty who have a vested interest in changing the curriculum, students have no self-interest in it. These changes will not apply to any of us that are here now, nor will they apply to the incoming class of 2011. So why do it? Why engage in the process?

Let’s look at the issue from another perspective, one that is explicitly self-interested. How many of us wish that a group of students had gotten together ten years ago and helped fashion a better liberal studies curriculum for us? A lot of the suggestions discussed above came from a student discussion group this week. The notes from that discussion and other faculty discussion groups will be posted online in the public folders soon. Look for an e-mail on how to access them. Read over the suggestions, come up with some of your own and e-mail them to studentassociation@smcvt.edu.