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The liberal arts (and sciences) are the best possible preparation for success in the learned professions—law, medicine, teaching—as well as in the less traditionally learned but increasingly arcane professions of business, finance, and high-tech innovation.
China is a distance behind the US when it comes to its liberal arts university education, and their interest is due to the fact that their university education has been heavily baised towards science and engineering for a long time. The US might be struggling to keep liberal arts as a priority, but I don't think the international argument is very compelling. Where does it lead? Are US high school graduates going to go to China for a LA education?
IMHO, there are plenty of good arguments for the value of a LA education, and international competitveness isn't a strong one. That said, I do think the US would do well to turn the LA ship around. If I founded a university, every graduate would have to pass Calculus I, and have an equivalent LA education. Graduates would be equally versed in literary critique as they were in mathematics. No exceptions. You can't get your math degree if you can't uniquely deconstruct Moby Dick, and you can't get your English Lit degree if you can't solve a definite integral. IMO, an education's worth is proportional to how much the requirements freak you out.