The end of liberal education. Has it already happened?

First this news update from the state, er, Republic of Texas, where Governor Rick Perry led the charge on making higher education more efficient and cost-effective:

Almost half of undergraduate programs at public colleges and universities in Texas are in danger of being eliminated because they do not meet a new state requirement of graduating at least 25 students every five years, UPI reported. ... Raymund Paredes, the Texas commissioner of higher education, said he would not back exceptions to the rule. "In this budgetary environment, we can't afford the luxury of programs not producing graduates," he told UPI. "It's up to academic departments faced with closure of programs to salvage them."

So, if physics is one of those programs that students are not gravitating towards, then where are the enrollments?  In professional and vocational programs--from nursing to criminal justice. And that generic "business" major.

This is the trend all across, and the university where I teach is no exception--business, criminal justice, teaching, nursing are the kind of programs that churn out graduates.

Yet, my employer describes the university as "a steadily emerging as a leading comprehensive public liberal arts institution," making me wonder, and worry, where exactly we champion the liberal arts!

The traditional liberal arts colleges are dying, and it is one hell of a rapid decline in their intellectual health and well being:

Students who major in liberal arts subjects are becoming fewer and fewer. Fifty-one of the 225 colleges had more than 50 percent vocational majors. Do we count those as those liberal arts colleges?

Truth in advertising might require universities, including mine, not to market themselves as "liberal arts" institutions when a majority of their graduates are not students who graduated in what would be considered the traditional liberal arts.  But then the notion of colleges and universities being truthful might be asking for too much anymore, eh :)

I, with my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, am not opposed to professional and vocation education at all. There is a place for that, and I resonate with this:

I’m not against vocational education; I’m suspicious of how good it is. I know for a certainty that one does not learn how to be a lawyer in law school. Do you learn how to be a parks and recreation person by taking parks and recreation courses? It is better to work at place as an unpaid volunteer even if you make nothing. You’ll still be better off than if you paid tuition. The problem is everyone says, “But you need the credential to get in the door.” Credentials are getting more important as the number of people looking for jobs is getting larger.

I have written in the past that "higher education" has now been downgraded into some kind of a job credentialing service.  I would way prefer that it is not viewed and treated that way, and I hope that external forces would actually take this credentialing aspect away from the mission of education and knowing.  That moment might be much closer than one would imagine:

The day when other organizations besides colleges provide a nondegree credential to signify learning might not be as far off as we think. One interesting project on this front is an effort to create “digital badges,” which would allow people to demonstrate their skills and knowledge to prospective employers without necessarily having a degree.
Badges could recognize, for example, informal learning that happens outside the classroom; “soft skills,” such as critical thinking and communication; and new literacies, such as aggregating information from various sources and judging its quality. And in a digital age, the badge could include links back to documents and other artifacts demonstrating the work that led to earning the stamp of approval.
...
At the announcement in Washington, the U.S. secretary of education, Arne Duncan, called badges a “game-changing strategy” and said his agency would join with the Department of Veterans Affairs to award $25,000 for the best badge prototype that serves veterans looking for well-paying jobs.
Under a badge system, colleges would no longer be the sole providers of a credential. While badges could be awarded by traditional colleges, they could also be given out by professional organizations, online and open-courseware providers, companies, or community groups.

Welcome to a brave new world of higher education!