TO THE EDITOR:
In Friday’s editorial, The Daily Tar Heel’s critique of adding a vocational emphasis to UNC’s board comes from a place of economic privilege (or ignorance).
A four-year liberal arts education at UNC costs about $100,000. That is far too much money and time (much of it financed by student debt) for most Americans to invest if the only benefit is the skill set honed by a liberal arts education. I can learn to read, write, critique ideas and quote dead academics’ theories for far less than $100,000 with 12 months, reading YouTube comments, a Kindle and Starbucks gift card.
Liberal arts is critical but doesn’t require four years and $100,000. We live in a world where technology grows exponentially, yet learning French (spoken by 220 million) can still fulfill your foreign language requirement and computer programming in Java (relied on by billions) cannot.
When I worked on a farm alongside impoverished workers from a variety of backgrounds, many of my co-workers told me their dreams of going to college. Curiously, none of them wanted liberal arts degrees — they all wanted vocational skills to earn more and help others.
We at UNC often take for granted that spending four years and $100,000 for a liberal arts degree is a “one-percenter” privileged undertaking. Before we criticize attempts to make this University more job-focused, let’s not forget that millions of underclass Americans would do anything to trade places with us. Many would want better jobs.
Glenn Lippig-Singewald
Senior
Economics
