In Defense Of A Liberal Education

Fareed Zakaria is the author of eight books (including Age of Revolutions), a journalist, and a political pundit. He currently hosts Fareed Zakaria GPS on the cable news network CNN and authors a column for The Washington Post. He was born in Mumbai and educated during the 1970s at a private school, the Cathedral and John Connon School, which English missionaries established during the colonial period. The economic downturn of the 1970s encouraged Zakaria’s middle-class family’s focus on career prospects, which usually centered upon the study of engineering or medicine over the humanities: “In those days the choices were obvious. The smart kids would go into science, the rich kids would go into commerce, and the girls would take the humanities” (23). Zakaria gave little critical thought to his options and chose to pursue the sciences. His educational training encouraged rote memorization but little critical reflection on the world.

US institutions of higher education began recruiting foreign students in the 1980s, offering attractive scholarships. Zakaria was amazed by the array of course options available to a friend who returned to India one summer after studying at Cornell University. Soon, Zakaria’s brother, Arshad, went to Harvard University. Zakaria was impressed with his sibling’s college catalog and decided to pursue an American college degree, too. He enrolled at Yale University, where he was intrigued by the liberal arts but felt called to the sciences. He eventually chose to pursue a degree in history after taking a single course on the Cold War. Receiving a liberal education changed his life and career trajectory.

Zakaria has since served as a trustee for Yale and favors the reintegration of the sciences and the liberal arts, as exemplified by the partnership between Yale and the National University of Singapore. Zakaria believes that this curriculum—which is global in nature and balances core requirements with elective options—is a superior model for higher education, which he argues has become unbalanced in its focus on faculty research to the detriment of course offerings for undergraduates.

Zakaria, however, writes from the perspective of one educated at an elite institution and neglects to acknowledge that most colleges and universities in the United States are not research institutions but teaching institutions, such as community colleges, private liberal arts colleges, and regional comprehensive colleges and universities that serve students from diverse backgrounds. He thus imposes the problems he identifies on an erroneously homogenized higher education, something for which his book has faced criticism for “academic classism,” as historian Kevin Gannon calls it (Gannon, Kevin. “Higher Ed Reformism: The View From the SLACs.” The Tattooed Prof, 30 Nov. 2015). However, Zakaria also promotes the benefits of accessible massive open online courses, like Coursera and edX. These options have not noticeably transformed traditional higher education, as some feared at the time of Zakaria’s writing, though they have made upskilling easier for those who already have degrees and provide education to those living in areas of the world where higher education is lacking. Much of the optimism around MOOCs has dwindled since the publication of Zakaria’s book (Lederman, Doug. “Why MOOCs Didn’t Work, in 3 Data Points.” Inside Higher Ed, 15 Jan. 2019).

Nevertheless, his work remains an influential viewpoint on the importance and utility of a liberal education in the face of constant emphasis on a college degree as mere “job preparation.” Zakaria suggests that a liberal education not only offers career readiness but also enriches one’s life in the long term. His lived experience offers proof of this assertion.