Colleges

 In this week's New York Times, Bret Devereaux, a (most interesting) historian at the University of North Carolina, notes and deplores the decision of Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, to eliminate majors including mathematics, English, history, and philosophy. He questions the wisdom and practicality of aiming to give colleges a more vocational direction, and the motives of those who wish to do so. In all this, I agree with him.

On the other hand, there is another story to be told. Marymount College was founded as a two-year college for women in 1950. Only in 1973 did Marymount offer four-year degrees. At some point in the 1980s, an ambitious college president worked on expansion. I first became aware of this when the Ballston metro station, not within easy walking distance of the original Marymount campus, became Ballston/Marymount University. I became more aware of this when my wife started to receive postcards from Marymount inviting her to earn a master's degree in interior design. (She did not take Marymount up, for she considered that she should be teaching the subject, not studying it.)

I suspect that the expansion of Marymount was enabled by the Washington metropolitan area's appetite for credentials. Many in the area work for government contractors, and a contractor can bill more for someone with an associate's degree than for someone with only a high school diploma, more still for someone with a bachelor's degree, and so on. The contractors get favorable treatment for money spent on courses that go to "maintain or improve" employees' skills for the jobs they hold. I don't know that this fed Marymount's expansion, but I believe that it helped many local schools thrive.

For feeding that appetite, though, there is a ratio to be considered, (dollars + hours) / credential. On-line instruction has driven down the numerator, without necessary diminishing the perceived value of the denominator. Marymount has physical plant to maintain, and for that matter full-time staff to pay, in relatively greater quantity than some of its on-line competitors. That has to have hurt it. The credential business at this level appears to be ruthlessly competitive.

 I am not happy at the news. I know at least one instructor--conscientious, intelligent--who may be affected by the decision. And I know that Marymount has served many of its students well. Still the story is not entirely one of the defeat of the liberal arts.