With the recent onset of generative AI, are college degrees becoming less valuable? If you’re the parent of a prospective student, you’re probably asking: How does Patrick Henry College distinguish itself from other liberal arts schools? And more importantly, how can my student communicate the value of a PHC education to skeptical employers?
A growing number of parents are concerned that a college education in general, and a liberal arts education in particular, isn’t worth the costs and risks of a four-year degree. College degrees continue to increase while tuition costs rise sharply and economic alternatives like trade schools become more feasible.
Significant numbers of employers are reevaluating the worth of a college education. According to a 2023 survey by the Cengage Group, 50% of employers now require a college degree, down from 62% the year before.
Also, a third of employers use skill training credentials to assess candidates’ potential, an increase of 7% from 2022. And almost 60% of employers reported changing the list of skills they thought were important for prospective hires. Additionally, college alternatives such as trade school and apprenticeship programs have become increasingly successful in the marketplace. According to the Pew Research Center, earnings for young men and women without a college degree have increased “modestly” in the past decade.
The growth of generative AI may accelerate this trend even further. Some researchers have raised concerns that generative AI advances could replace college-educated workers, including lawyers and healthcare professionals.
But for classical liberal arts schools, this is just a new twist on an age-old problem: how to market soft skills and traditional education methods in a tech-driven world that values originality and innovation over continuity and stability.
But the Pew Research Center report also found that 80% of young college-educated men have retained full-time jobs over the past several decades. Critically, this percentage “hasn’t fluctuated with good or bad economic cycles.” The college-educated workforce has survived similar market shifts before, and generative AI may not disrupt this.
Even a seismic disruption, however, would not leave PHC students without marketable skills. The Cengage report found that many employers want to see more soft skills such as negotiation and persuasion—skills that PHC’s forensics program nurtures with stellar results.
Ray Schroeder, a senior fellow at UPCEA, thinks liberal arts students could perform well at prompt engineering, which requires a strong mastery of the English language. Chatbot responses to signs of depression or to compulsive behaviors raise philosophical questions that can’t be solved by cutting-edge coding or larger quantities of data. PHC graduates trained in philosophy and logical reasoning are well-placed to find answers to these issues.
PHC alumna Carissa Davis, Academic Dean at Alexandria Classical Christian Academy, explained the connection between PHC’s educational methods and vocational results. Classroom discussions don’t stay in the classroom but spill over into the dining hall and dorm rooms. And the small classroom size means that professors can and do give practical and spiritual advice to their students that goes beyond classroom instruction. “…so much of the learning was built on the trust of the relationship with them,” Davis recalled.
.png?width=385&height=385&name=cla%20%20(2).png)
Out-of-classroom discussions make for smart students who can convey their beliefs coherently and persuasively. The effect of a PHC liberal education—intelligent and proactive citizens who appreciate goodness, truth, and beauty—is observable not merely through metrics like annual salary or worldly fame, but through relationships with professors and friends. Davis didn’t regurgitate her knowledge, but discussed it energetically with her friends and professors, which meant that it stuck with her. PHC students are trained to have broad mental maps and communication skills that match, and employers and interviewers notice this.
Many publications (and even some Christian ones) treat liberal arts as an educational pathway that offers a holistic education instead of vocational training, creating book-smart students with sparse job prospects. PHC does both. PHC’s powerful combination of focused Socratic instruction, uncompromising Christian worldview, and close proximity to D.C. creates mature, intellectually flexible students who have both the desire and the capability to influence America in their post-graduation positions.
In a world permeated by generative AI, Christians will distinguish themselves not only by their creativity and ingenuity but by their unique worldview. As the world and workplace grow darker, Christians of all educational backgrounds may find themselves increasingly in demand as morally pure employees. But Christians with liberal arts degrees will be even better positioned since they understand the underpinnings of human nature. In a world of falsehoods, a Christian commitment to absolute truth backed by the best of Western metaphysics will be both persuasive and marketable to a cynical world.
----------
Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.
