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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.