Follow your passion: Who can afford it?

Of course it is. And everyone's going to college thinking not about humanities courses but about getting a good job. Those of us who study philosopy or English or the arts are often met with, "what kind of job are you going to get with that degree?" Any creative job pays very little and often nothing to start out, entertainment, advertising, arts, journalism etc. all pay notoriously low wages. It's a tough road but if you're doing what you love, it's worth it. Our culture doesn't value novelists, artists, etc. when you have a Paris Hilton in the media every day. Which is funny, because I have yet to meet one person who holds anything other than contempt for her image and what she represents. Who exactly decided to put Paris Hilton everywhere when noone really likes her?

Stephen-

A common complaint amongst friends who grew up in Europe has to do with how often American colleges are really vocational schools. As business schools seem to be, for the moment, running out of gas, maybe reform is upon us. It seems like there's a growing disconnect between expectations and reality. It's not a bad thing for a young adult to do a well rounded basic higher education, work for a while, then get advanced vocational training in a specific field. That's not the recipe for instant bucks, but maybe it makes for happier people and more productive lives for everyone involved. Incidentally, I have a couple of graduate degrees. Along the way, I did manage to sneak in a couple of writing courses from the other end of campus.

Pete Zievers

Having graduated in Journalism 41 years ago and dived into work as a WSJ reporter, I can't see that anything has changed. There've always been people who've gone for the work and a few who've traveled, etc. As for the myth that liberal arts majors are better rounded and more cultured, what I see is that they are the most narrow minded people I know. Wonder why that is?

Donald, What I'm seeing is the college costs a lot more than it used to, and lots of people are convinced that grad school is as necessary now as college was in the past. Whether that's true or not, people in their 20s are running up far more debt than they did a generation or two back. Of course, there was a brief period five or six years ago, when it seemed that liberal arts types could pursue their dreams and get rich at the same time...
I went back and read my post, and I didn't say there that liberal arts majors were better rounded or more cultured. But I am interested in your idea that they're narrow minded. In my experience, narrow- and broadminded people are scattered over many disciplines.

Yeah, Steve, I went over the top on that one. No offense intended.

No offense taken at all. I've been thinking about it quite a bit over the last day. I read a very interesting anthro paper by a student at Reed College this morning, and I was thinking: This guy is curious. That much is sure. But are curious people, by definition, open-minded? You'll see, he runs into other liberal arts people as he pursues he research who are as close-minded as they come. I'll include the link here, because I found the paper quite a bit of fun, especially the part sub-titled "chicago." http://alex.golub.name/res/shootingsnowy.pdf