The best liberal arts school producing society’s smartest students

The best liberal arts schools in the US are being gutted. 

In mid-2024, a public university in New York fired seven tenured faculty members and kept the exact number of contract renewals under wraps. This comes after a US$9 million annual operating deficit, and the liberal arts colleges are the point of contact.

At a university in West Virginia, layoffs began in 2023.

After gutting 28 academic programmes, many in areas like languages, architecture, and the arts, notices were sent to 76 people. Of those, 32 were tenured, which should’ve meant their position was indefinite. At a research university in Ohio, 18 majors under liberal arts were subjected to proposed cuts after a US$36 million budget deficit.

While unfortunate, these cuts could be seen a mile away, given how the value of a liberal arts education has always been severely undervalued.

A music devotee wrote in the Odyssey about certain less-than-pleasant reactions he’s received in the face of wanting to study music: “They’ll either look at me funny, reply with something along the lines of ‘That’s cool, but you know you have to make money right?’ Or they’ll flat-out tell me that I will be broke for the rest of my life.”

The underappreciated yet necessary study of liberal arts

“In a world of ‘alternative facts,’ where a social media post can spark an angry mob, we should be producing people whose minds and perspectives are trained to be broad, perpetually curious and equal to the task of analysing and solving these problems,” Mark Contreras, President and CEO of Connecticut Public writes. 

He continues, “People who have changed the course of history often developed and sharpened their minds through a liberal arts education.”

It’s true — prominent figures like Oprah Winfrey, Theodore Roosevelt, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Martin Luther King Jr. all studied the liberal arts in various fields: communications, history, natural sciences, and sociology, respectively.

With that said, why are the best liberal arts schools still suffering?

While the roots of a liberal arts education date back to Ancient India and China, it’s mainly known today as a concept in Western higher education. It’s a broad, interdisciplinary field of study which covers the arts, humanities, social and natural sciences, and mathematics.

“While it’s true that STEM majors often command higher starting salaries and face higher demand in certain industries, education doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition,” writes Seth Gabrielson, an Opinion Columnist on The Michigan Daily. “Embracing a well-rounded education that encompasses both STEM and humanities can lead to greater creativity and problem-solving abilities.” 

On the other side of the fence, many see no actual value in a liberal arts education because it’s not as lucrative as a degree like engineering or medicine, for example.

If it, in the eyes of relentless politicians, offers no value to the economic growth of a country, why should it matter?

In 2023, the New York Times reported that the state auditor of Mississippi made an eight-page report to state that investments should be slated for degree programmes that could “improve the value they provide to both taxpayers and graduates.”

The degree programmes in question? Engineering and business.

As upsetting as this might be, this long-standing perspective isn’t just prominent in the US. 

Liberal arts education has always been held inferior compared to subjects in STEM. Source: AFP

“We have almost totally neglected the very important liberal arts education, which is absolutely necessary to develop people who can think,” said Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, back in 2000.

In 2001, 356 lower-secondary students in Singapore were surveyed about their thoughts on the arts. Almost half of them thought art unimportant, showing no interest in the subject and dissatisfaction with the educational approach.

More than a decade later, Singapore’s first liberal arts college, Yale-NUS College, opened as a partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore.

Still, many didn’t quite understand what a liberal arts education offered.

“Recently, in a talk given by Eric Sim, I realised the shared Singaporean struggle of fully understanding what the term ‘Liberal Arts’ meant,” a graduate wrote in 2021. “If I am honest, before I joined YNC in August last year, I still was unsure what I had signed myself up for. However, spending the past seven months seeing the wonders of this system first-hand, I can confidently say that I am so grateful I got in.”

In 2021, it was announced that Yale-NUS College would close its doors by 2025 and merge with the NUS University Scholars Programme while dropping Yale’s name.

While that does mark the closure of an institution that brought significant interest to the liberal arts in Singapore, not all is lost. The new programme will enroll larger cohorts of students and allow more Singaporeans to experience a specialised and liberal arts education.

About 4,374 kilometres southeast of Singapore, sunny Australia’s hiking up the tuition fees for arts degrees to over 50,000 Australian dollars (US$32,508) in 2025.

The reason? It’s a purposeful tactic to make arts degrees less accessible to students in Australia so that they’d opt for degrees which benefited local industries facing a skill shortage: software engineering, education, nursing, and data analysis, to name a few.

However, favouring more practical, money-making majors strips away the trait that distinguishes us as humans — creativity and diversity in thought. 

A liberal arts education is as useful for a business student as it is for an aspiring writer.

“Studying the classics has put me in better touch with humanity and shown me the value of living a virtuous life,” a business student from Hillsdale College says. “This is imperative in the business world because when it boils down to it, business is about people.”

It’s also not as much of a dead-end to employment prospects as people think it is.

Harvard Business Review wrote that employer demand for liberal arts graduates is increasing, with 80% of employers agreeing that students need a strong foundation in liberal arts and sciences.

6 best liberal arts schools to start an intellectual life

Liberal arts majors include history, sociology, archaeology, philosophy, cultural studies, and more. Source: AFP

University College Freiburg, Germany

In 2012, University College Freiburg became the first institution in Germany to offer a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences.

As one of the most prestigious universities in the nation and one of the oldest, with a 560-year-old history, this offering is proof that a liberal arts education is the way forward.

Today, the degree has bloomed into the full-blown Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) programme, which spans over four years of interdisciplinary study taught in English. Majors include Culture and History, Governance, Life Sciences, and Environmental and Sustainability Sciences.

Gothenburg University, Sweden

Sweden is famous for its technological innovation and commitment to sustainability, but they’re doing right by the liberal arts too.

Stockholm University, Sweden’s largest university, is located right in the colourful, bustling capital, and it sits at the top of the ranks for a liberal arts education. There’s a wide variety of subjects offered in the Arts and Humanities category, such as Archaeology, Philosophy, History, and more.

The university’s amongst the top 100 in the world, so it’s worth every penny.

Liberal arts is an interdisciplinary field that exercises creativity in thought. Source: AFP

Fulbright University Vietnam

In 2016, Fulbright University Vietnam was founded as the Southeast Asian country’s first non-profit liberal arts university through a partnership between the US and Vietnam.

Located in the historic pinnacle of Ho Chi Minh City, a liberal arts education here is taught through a style reflecting that of American liberal arts colleges. That is to say, here, they hope to inspire new generations of leaders and ambitious thinkers of diverse origins to serve Vietnamese society and contribute to a better world.

Education here begins with a Core Curriculum in the first two years before you choose your major. This allows you to explore your interests and experiment widely before specialising in a subject.

Amherst College, US

You can’t talk about the best liberal arts schools without mentioning the US, and you can’t list their extensive catalogue without putting Amherst College among the top.

The university’s been nurturing graduates prepared to make a difference in the world since 1821, with over US$68,000 worth of financial aid offered to students for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Their arts and humanities programmes never cease to embody the human touch — featuring various hands-on learning opportunities that highlight the impact and application of these areas of study, as well as including connections to post-graduate professional life.

Some of the most brilliant minds in history who’ve changed societal perspectives started with a liberal arts education. Source: AFP

John Cabot University, Italy

The beauty of Italy has served as an inspiration to many authors in literary history, and perhaps it’s the place for you to thrive in the liberal arts, too.

John Cabot University was founded in Rome in 1972, and it’s an independent, four-year liberal arts university that offers English-taught study abroad programmes for international students. Classroom sizes are small, and opportunities are aplenty as you’re surrounded by the summit of history, art, and international affairs.

Your time here is bolstered by studying alongside others from 75 different countries. Together, you’ll share ideas and perspectives in class and build friendships outside of class — shaping your liberal arts education into one that is unmatched by any other.

University of Cape Town, South Africa

If you’re looking for an escape from the West, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa is one of the nation’s hot spots for a liberal arts education.

They’ve been displaying strength in their research-based curriculum since 1829, one that’s acclaimed worldwide. The university even ranks within the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings 2025 list, placing at #171, making it South Africa’s finest higher education institution.

As the second largest faculty at UCT, the Faculty of Humanities offers wide-ranging undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across three main clusters: the arts, the social sciences, and the performing and creative arts.