Why a Liberal Arts Education Still Matters For Kids Growing Up With AI
Last month, I cleared a space for my 17-year-old Sam’s college brochures next to my half-eaten carnitas taco at the kitchen table, and my brother-in-law texted mid-meal: Tell him to pick a CS major. Why drop six figures on a history degree when AI can write all the papers and take all the jobs anyway? The table was sticky from lemonade, Sam had just finished scrolling TikTok where every other video was a CS grad bragging about six-figure starting salaries, and he looked up at me and said, “Yeah, that’s what everyone says.” He’d been talking since sophomore year about wanting to study 20th century labor history and creative nonfiction, the kind of thing he stays up reading after he finishes homework, the kind of thing he brings up unprompted with the retired machinist who hangs out at our local hardware store.
Three days later, I sat across from a 10th grader named Mia after school, who turned in a flawless AI-generated essay on To Kill a Mockingbird that didn’t have a single original thought in it. When I asked her why she didn’t write the thing she’d brought up in class – that she thought Atticus was too careful, that he left the work of actually changing things to the Black community in Maycomb – she shrugged and said, “What’s the point of learning to write this stuff anyway? I want to be a pediatric nurse. AI will do all my charting and patient education in 10 years. Why waste time on it?”
I told her that AI can write a patient education brochure, but it can’t look at a 16-year-old patient who’s just been diagnosed with asthma and adjust the language so it doesn’t scare her, so it fits how she talks, so she actually remembers to use her inhaler. That’s the part that matters. That’s the part that keeps people connected, that makes things work.
I’ve had this conversation with dozens of parents over the last two years. Everyone is scared of AI, everyone thinks the only safe degree is something tech-related. But the mistake people make is thinking liberal arts is useless because it doesn’t teach one specific technical skill that’s hot right now. What it does teach is the stuff AI can’t copy: how to ask the right question when you don’t know the answer, how to tell when a set of facts is leaving something important out, how to talk to people who disagree with you without making them shut down, how to connect what happened a hundred years ago to what’s happening in front of you right now.
I tell parents the first small change to make is the question you ask your kid when they say they want to study literature or sociology or history. Instead of opening with “What job will you get with that?” try “What problem do you want to solve with that?” It shifts the conversation from worrying about a job title 10 years from now to what your kid actually cares about, and it helps them connect their interest to real work, too. Last year, a mom I know whose kid wanted to major in anthropology tried this, and her kid told her he wanted to study how misinformation spreads on social media among Native communities. That’s not a “useless” interest – AI companies are paying people right now to solve exactly that problem.
Another small step I suggest: Once a semester, sit down with your kid and pull up 10 job listings for roles that sound interesting to them, even if they’re tech roles. Highlight the requirements that aren’t coding or data analysis. Last time I did this with Sam, we looked at five entry-level roles at AI startups, and every single one listed “strong written and verbal communication” and “ability to identify what different groups need” and “spot gaps in arguments” as top requirements. None of them said “must have a computer science degree” for every role on the list.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, either. Encourage them to pick up one small, practical AI-related skill that pairs with their liberal arts interest. A history major can learn to build simple digital archives of primary sources from a free 6-week online course. An English major can learn how to edit AI-generated content to fit a specific brand or audience. It doesn’t have to be a whole second major, just a small add-on that lets them use AI to do the work their liberal arts training teaches them to do better.
Sam is still filling out his applications. He’s talking about adding a minor in data science, just so he can learn to analyze the census data he wants to use for his labor history research, and that’s fine with me. I don’t know for sure what the job market will look like when he graduates in 2028. I don’t have a guarantee he’ll make as much money right out of college as his CS major classmates. But I do know that AI changes all the time, and the job market changes all the time, and the one thing that’s always been in demand is people who can understand other people, ask good questions, and make sense of messy, conflicting information.
Last week, he came home from an admissions open house and said the guy from the career center told him, “A liberal arts degree doesn’t prepare you for your first job. It prepares you for your fifth job.” That makes sense to me. We’re still weighing options, still talking through the pros and cons, but for right now, I’m not going to tell him to give up the thing he cares about just because everyone’s scared of what AI might do next.
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