Going Global

Americans face growing international economic competition. Washington, poised on the Pacific Rim, expects to be one of the beneficiaries or victims of the emergence of powerful economies on the other side of the ocean. It is common sense today that education, and higher education in particular, will determine which economy will emerge victorious in this new global age.

To many Washington policymakers and citizens, economic competition requires technical training—focusing on those specific jobs that are expected to grow. At both the community college and the four-year college level, there is an effort to direct money and students to “high demand” fields that will help Washingtonians develop a vibrant economy for the twenty-first century.

Certainly, we should offer vocational and technical training to our citizens, especially in two-year colleges. But is this enough? Are the more broad, more general, liberal arts and sciences programs that have long defined baccalaureate education a waste of money and time? Are they a luxury we can no longer afford? Are they likely to encourage the kind of economic innovation we need? To answer these questions, perhaps we should look abroad, to the very economies from which we now face competition.

There has been much discussion of Asian tiger economies and the importance of technical higher education in China and elsewhere. For a long time, the Chinese government invested heavily in developing technical experts, hoping that their well-trained workers would compete successfully against Americans and Europeans for jobs. But now, as China emerges as an important economic power in its own right, it is rethinking this strategy. No longer willing to be just technicians, the Chinese wish to be leaders. And, they have discovered, to lead requires investing in the liberal arts and sciences.

China, for example, has recently opened a new liberal arts university to encourage students to be more creative. It is encouraging its students to think outside the box. It is investing in small student-centered classrooms and embracing a more flexible curriculum. In doing so China is moving beyond its traditional vocational focus in its bid to become the world’s economic leader. The Chinese know that the leaders of tomorrow will require a broad education in the arts and sciences.

This is the same conclusion reached by Michigan State University professor Yong Zhao in his book Catching Up or Leading the Way. Zhao, who was born and raised in China but is now living in the United States and raising his family here, argues that Americans are being short-sighted in emphasizing technical education and easily quantifiable results. Observing his young children’s education, Zhao notes that what makes American education distinctive is not its obsessive focus on standardized tests, but the unquantifiable value of programs that promote creativity—the arts, music, theater, and extra-curricular activities. He concludes that even as Americans fall behind on international standardized tests—something, no doubt, we hope to change—they continue to have the most competitive and creative economy precisely because of the broad education their children receive, an education that is overlooked by most international comparisons.

In short, the broad education provided by Washington’s four-year institutions creates the kind of people that our economy and our society needs.

Perhaps no experiment speaks more of this effort to go from being the world’s technicians to its creative leaders than the opening of the new New York University campus in Abu Dhabi. Funded by the Abu Dhabi government, the campus hopes to become the “world’s honors college.” But Abu Dhabi’s government, like China’s, knows that the most creative students would be ill served by a narrow, technical education. The world needs technicians, but Abu Dhabi also wants to educate the next generation of innovators. The core curriculum is oriented around four major areas:Pathways of World Literature; Structures of Thought and Society; Art, Technology, and Invention; and Ideas and Methods of Science. In short, NYU-Abu Dhabi seeks to replicate the American liberal arts and sciences model for the world.

There are places in the United States, too, that are refocusing on liberal education. Business schools are increasingly arguing that their students need to receive more humanistic education in order to be better leaders and thinkers. Medical schools seek students who have a strong liberal arts background because they know that these doctors have not just the creative capacities but also the empathy that future doctors will need. In short, both business and medical schools believe that it is not enough to have technical knowledge; one needs the broad foundation that only a liberal arts and sciences education provides.

The liberal arts and sciences matter for more than just economic reasons. Baccalaureate education prepares people for life. We hope that a democratic society offers its citizens the education necessary to lead fulfilling lives. Moreover, in a tradition reaching back to the Founding Fathers, liberal education is intended to prepare students to be responsible and effective citizens. The nice thing, however, is that the four-year colleges’ curriculum of liberal arts and sciences can do all these things. In helping students prepare for their personal lives and their roles as citizens, it also develops their creative, analytic, and thinking skills—the skills that other countries recognize have been the basis for Americans’ economic global dominance.

Of course, Washingtonians need and deserve more than one kind of higher education. There is an important place in Washington for technical, vocational training. But, as our economic competitors know, we also need the broader, creative education that will inspire new ideas and new solutions to current and future problems. We have tended to focus our resources on the former and forget about the latter. In a competitive global world, however, China, Abu Dhabi, and other countries will claim the ground that we abandon. It’s time for us to reclaim it—both to improve our society and to retain our competitiveness.