As President Obama looks for quick passage of his American Jobs Act, a number of educational leaders say a liberal arts degree on a resume may help job seekers find work in a variety of emerging fields. According to the National Science Foundation, the percentage of students who added a humanities degree to their resume from top universities has been on a steady decline since the 1960s, but now many companies are looking for workers who are critical thinkers with a broad background in the humanities. David Boyle, board chair at Wittenberg University in Ohio, told the Springfield News Sun that a liberal arts degree may be more helpful long-term because it can provide the future workforce with knowledge-based learning that may be more useful in a quickly changing economy. "I can make a very strong argument that a liberal arts education is more important today than it was when I went to school 40 years ago," Boyle told the news agency. "Jobs that exist today won’t exist five years from now." The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that some of the most common occupations of liberal arts majors include management, graphic design, social work and teaching. |