Administrators aren’t supporting ‘old-fashioned’ liberal arts that students want

Blame administrators, not students, for the decline of “old-fashioned” liberal arts in higher education, a philosophy professor wrote Thursday at The New York Times.

As the dean, until recently, of the University of Tulsa’s Honors College, Jennifer Frey said she has not witnessed the stuff of alarm in reports about college students: their unwillingness to read books, their reliance on AI, short attention spans, and struggles with mental health.

When a university invests in the liberal arts, as the University of Tulsa once did, she said students don’t just see “their coursework as a step toward specific careers.”

Instead, Frey said students learn to develop “meaningful and deeply fulfilling lives.”