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LIBERAL ARTS: PREP SCHOOL FOR LIFE –– Don’t view the value of a liberal arts college education solely through an economic lens. This professor has the stats to support that idea. by Ed McKinley Besides benefitting from mentoring relationships with instructors, students are involved with peers who introduce them to unfamiliar OF COLLEGE GRADS HAVE perspectives. “They learn to BETTER LIVES AND HIGHER work together with people of INCOME BECAUSE OF AN all kinds,” he said. “AUTHENTIC COMMUNITY” The enviable results of those interconnections are quantifiable and are documented by Detweiler’s research, he mainOF COLLEGE GRADS FARE tained. Interviews with grads BETTER IN LIFE IF THEY of all ages indicated students STUDY BROADLY, NOT who experience the kind of NARROWLY community he outlines are 32% –The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: to 39% more likely to achieve financial success, ascend to Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, powerful positions and lead and Accomplishment Richard Detweiler give talks to their communities—compared spread the word on the value of by Richard A. Detweiler with those who don’t enjoy a liberal arts education. the advantages of a tight-knit academic community. t’s not so much what you study Richard Detweiler calls an “authentic” Students can seek out these enclaves of but how you study it that leads community. It’s a group of college students mutual benefit at large institutions, but they’re to financial success and personal and faculty who interact not only in the more likely to stumble upon them at small classroom or lecture hall but also on a fulfillment. That’s one of the big liberal arts schools designed to foster them, ideas that emerged from a study personal level. Detweiler said. of 1,000 college graduates ages 25 “People are really connected with one Majors are minor another, and faculty know individual to 65 for the book The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and students by their first names,” Detweiler told Besides demonstrating the importance of Accomplishment. Luckbox in a description of such communicommunity, Detweiler’s research indicates Students who go on to prosper economities. “Students talk with faculty outside of that what a student studies doesn’t dictate cally, contribute to society and realize their class time—not just about academic matters success or failure in life. What’s importdreams are often shaped by what author but about the rest of their life.” ant, the study shows, is studying broadly
32%-39% 59%
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