Giving Compass' Take:

• Budget cuts have been affecting all areas of education for the past few decades. More recently, however, cutting down on costs have meant cutting out liberal arts on campuses, as this Atlantic pice discusses. 

• What role might higher ed funders play in preserving liberal arts programs? How might workforce training be integrated with certain non-STEM-related majors?

• Here's an example on the battle to save the liberal arts. 

For many years, Wisconsin had one of the finest public-university systems in the country. It was built on an idea: that the university’s influence should not end at the campus’s borders, that professors—and the students they taught—should “search for truth” to help state legislators write laws, aid the community with technical skills, and generally improve the quality of life across the state.

Many people attribute the Wisconsin Idea, as it is known, to Charles Van Hise, the president of the University of Wisconsin from 1903 to 1918. “I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every family of the state,” Hise said in an address in 1905. “If our beloved institution reaches this ideal it will be the first perfect state university.” His idea was written into the mission of the state’s university system, and over time that system became a model for what public higher education could be.

Read the full article about the state of liberal arts in America by Adam Harris at The Atlantic.