Colleges Build Better Career Skills When Students Aren’t Confined to Narrow Preprofessional Tracks

State legislatures and Congress are increasingly pressing colleges to demonstrate the economic value of degree programs. Over recent decades, professionally focused graduate degrees — such as MBAs and engineering-management programs — have grown in popularity and reshaped university finances. These programs often charge substantially higher tuition and can generate reliable revenue that helps support other campus priorities.

But this financial shift has created a quieter tension: the widening gap between narrowly practical technical training and the broader education that fosters inquiry, reflection and innovation. Measuring program value only by short-term graduate earnings misses critical civic and cognitive benefits that colleges should cultivate.

The value beyond earnings

Higher education should do more than produce immediately employable graduates. It should shape citizens and leaders who can interpret uncertainty, challenge assumptions and connect ideas across disciplines. Disciplines such as English, philosophy, history and world languages teach critical thinking, clear communication and ethical reasoning — capacities essential for public life and long-term professional success.

Law schools and many civic institutions routinely recruit students who trained in humanities because those fields produce analytical and rhetorical strengths essential for navigating complex legal and civic problems.

Initiative, ambiguity and innovation

One underappreciated skill in technology, medicine and business is initiative: the ability to frame a question, act amid uncertainty and mobilize others. Humanities coursework often trains students to interpret incomplete information and propose original arguments, while structured STEM curricula can unintentionally reward caution and compliance. Employers consistently report that initiative is difficult to teach on the job — it develops best when students are encouraged to take intellectual risks.

As an educator who started in psychology and later moved into engineering, I have seen how different intellectual traditions illuminate the same human problems. Psychology trains observation and experimental design; engineering trains system modeling and optimization. Together they uncover how people interact with technology and how design reshapes behavior — questions neither field can fully answer alone.

Practical steps universities can take

• Recognize and reward cross-disciplinary teaching and joint appointments in promotion and tenure guidelines.
• Create curricular space for meaningful electives and co-taught courses that link technical work to human context.
• Encourage project-based learning where students must explain both what they built and why it matters.
• Improve academic advising so students pursuing professional tracks can still explore complementary fields without jeopardizing graduation timelines.

At the University of Iowa’s Driving Safety Research Institute, engineers, physicians, public-health specialists and psychologists collaborate so students learn that a safe automated vehicle is not simply a technical system but also a behavioral one: human responses to automation matter as much as the algorithms that govern it. Olin College of Engineering similarly centers projects on technical feasibility and human context, often co-teaching courses across disciplines.

Real barriers remain

Integrating liberal and technical education is difficult. Accreditation requirements can saturate vocational curricula, faculty incentives often favor specialization over collaboration, and students and parents — anxious about debt and job prospects — may resist taking electives outside a major. Overcoming these obstacles requires leadership, clear incentives and minor but meaningful policy changes at institutional and state levels.

Conclusion: Higher education should aim to produce adaptable thinkers, not uniform workers. The debate should not be about defending the liberal arts versus glorifying STEM. Instead, we should recognize that each field is incomplete by itself. Education that cultivates depth, initiative and perspective prepares students not only for their first job, but for lifelong learning and leadership.

By Daniel V. McGehee, University of Iowa