In 1990 David Breneman conducted a study in which he classified 212 institutions of higher education in the United States as true liberal arts colleges.

Breneman based his conclusion on several factors, including number of degrees awarded in the arts and sciences and resources used on undergraduates. The Association of American Colleges and Universities re-examined Breneman’s results to decide how many of those original 212 still remain liberal arts colleges. In 2012, a mere 22 years after Breneman’s study, only 130 such institutions can still be classified as liberal arts colleges according to Brenenman’s original criteriaa nearly 40 percent decrease in only 24 years.

This study reveals the recent trend in higher education of increasing focus on research and the sciences at the expense of the arts and humanities. Universities have shifted their understanding of truth from something objective that can be known from natural law and reason to something that can be gleaned from empirical and scientific evidence alone.

George W.F. Hegel, as influential figure as any in reshaping the modern university, sought to remove any notion of the divine from the search for truth, reducing it to something relative. Hegel asserted, “As in this way the divine is eliminated from the ethical world, truth must be sought outside of it. And since at the same time reason should and does belong to the ethical world, truth, being divorced from reason, is reduced to a mere speculation.”

In this manner, the permanence of human nature and the existence of the divine are completely discarded. Rather, universities seek to impart to their students a positivistic truth according to which human nature is contingent on historical circumstances, and therefore must be sought through empirical evidence and the scientific method rather than classical philosophical inquiry.

In his essay “Theology, Metaphysics, and Positivism,” John Marini expounds on this shift, explaining, “The origins of the social sciences and the transformation of the American university were a product of that positivist view, which sought to combine the spirit of science and the religion of humanity.”

This new view of education largely disregards the idea that students can learn from the past and through a combination of all the major disciplines, in favor of looking to the future. When grounded in natural law, innovation can be helpful and in fact necessary, but unfortunately, in contemporary academia, much of this innovation is solely for the sake of “progress” without regard for the boundaries of human nature and the existence of the divine.

A time-tested institution, the university has existed since the thirteenth century with the intention of educating the whole person through a unification of the various disciplines. Unfortunately, the modern university model has strayed from the purpose and practice of the original university. This deviation is evidenced in the fact that many universities no longer maintain a core curriculum, and students may pursue one specific area of study without knowledge of any of the others.

Even colleges and universities that do retaina core curriculum do not place much emphasis on the integration of all of these classes in various subject areas for the purpose of the authentic development of the student. Many of these introductory level courses in the core curriculum are taught by graduate students rather than hired faculty, highlighting the lack of importance placed on core classes.

According to a study conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities on general education requirements, many institutions are redesigning their core curriculum to an outcome-based method of learning with requirements based on the skills that employers wish to see in potential candidates, such as critical thinking and oral communication skills, as well as diversity requirements. Rather than using the core requirements as an opportunity to integrate the major disciplines for holistic student development, universities are using them to provide students with a basic skill set in order to obtain a job.

These requirements are viewed as simply another mandatory step in the process of earning a degree rather than the possibility to explore diverse subjects and apply them to daily life. Too often, a degree is now the ultimate goal of higher education, not whatever knowledge is expressed by the degree.

The same study found that core requirements for specific programs and majors have become more common, furthering the disintegration among the areas of study. This shift reveals the new purpose of education, which is preparation. The requirements for a particular major typically serve the purpose of preparing students for higher-level classes within that program instead of forming a base for integrated learning.

Universities have started dropping the core requirements because they are not deemed useful for functioning in everyday life. The requirements produce an obstacle to the progress of achieving a degree. With this approach, it is inefficient and a waste of resources to overeducate a person by requiring that he take a variety of courses in a multitude of subject areas rather than simply allowing him to take classes related to his eventual career path.

Universities aim to achieve advancement and innovation at all costs, even if this progress defies insights yielded to the classical philosophical inquiry embodied in the Socratic tradition and the western pre-Enlightenment intellectual patrimony generally. Altering the university experience in the name of efficiency has fundamentally changed the purpose of education from complete development to preparation for the sake of progress. Studying the humanities looking to the wisdom of ages past to gain knowledge about human nature, which knowledge in turn grounds new insights that will bear fruit in and for the futureare being dumped.

Unfortunately, the disregard for the truth, rooted in natural law and reason, is not limited to only universities; it is a deep societal flaw that has trickled down to the lower levels of education as well, under the name of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Common Core, a set of national K-12 educational standards, measures learning only based on performance on standardized tests. The purpose of Common Core is not to authentically educate children but rather to ensure “college and career readiness.”

Under these standards, classical works of literature, full of past wisdom, are replaced with informational texts, supposedly applicable to the workforce. Great works of literature are not considered important or useful for preparation for college and the workforce and, therefore, have no place in the modern classroom.

In this way, Common Core reduces education to the most basic level of preparation. According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative website, “The standards define the knowledge and skills students should gain throughout their K-12 education in order to graduate high school prepared to succeed in entry-level careers, introductory academic college courses, and workforce training programs.”

The theory behind Common Core essentially argues that the workforce is the ultimate end of the student and it would therefore be inefficient to truly educate and develop a person, as it would not directly relate to his function in the workforce.

This view of education confuses the person with a product. The current system of education begins with the desired “product” (a contributing member of the workforce) and crafts a process to achieve this end. With this goal in mind, there is little use for the humanities in higher education or even classic works of literature in the lower levels.

Through education, a society can impart what it considers to be important to the next generation. As Patrick Deneen remarked at a conference entitled “The Changing Role of Education in America: Consequences of the Common Core” held at the University of Notre Dame in September 2013, “if you want to know the commitments of a civilization, look at what it aims to teach its young.”

Today, society has placed much import on progress. As Marini notes “Indeed, the idea of progress is based on the assumption that history itself establishes the conditions that ensure the intellectual and moral advancement of mankind.” This obsession with the new along with the belief that there are almost no limits on human nature has infiltrated the educational system at all levels. Common Core is just a symptom of the larger issue of removal of objective truth, based on reason and nature, from society for the sake of progress.

Due to rankings based heavily on student outcomes and innovative faculty research, universities have incentive to churn out large amounts of research. This is not a bad thing. But the practical result of such incentive is the production of much research that draws relativistic conclusions based solely on empirical data, not necessarily on the realities of natural law. This type of empirical research is what earns universities high marks, as it advances the progress of society steeped in historicist and positivistic philosophy.

Consequently, the lower levels follow suit. Progress can be more easily achieved if all levels are working together in the most efficient way. For this reason, Common Core strips education to the bare essentials necessary to perform and progress in college and the workforce. Because Common Core is mere preparation for college and the workforce, it must only teach what is necessary to function at the higher levels.

Progress is even placed above humanity in many ways. Common Core and modern higher education ignore the innate, human desire of man to learn for the sake of learning. Students cannot possibly reach their full potential or flourishing by participating in this type of utilitarian preparation for the workforce.