In recent years, public confidence in the value of higher education has declined, with a growing share of Americans questioning whether the value of a college degree—particularly one rooted in the liberal arts and sciences—is worth the investment. Rising tuition costs, economic inequality, and evolving labor market demands have all contributed to this skepticism. Critics argue that without the technical or “hard” skills sought in our increasingly technology-driven economy, students will not succeed in the job market and earn high wages. Proponents, however, contend that a liberal education cultivates essential skills—critical thinking, communication, and adaptability—valuable across a wide range of careers and increasingly important in a rapidly changing economy. Yet the consensus of the empirical evidence on a liberal education’s labor market value remains murky, partly because researchers lack a comprehensive way to measure what constitutes a liberal arts experience, often relying on proxies such as a student’s major or the type of institution attended.

Ithaka S+R, supported by the Mellon Foundation, has been working since 2019 to clearly define, measure, and communicate the value of a liberal education, an effort that has become increasingly urgent in the current political landscape and climate. Today, we are excited to share a new report and accompanying resources from our latest study examining the economic value of a liberal education, all of which are available on our website. Building upon our previous work that sought to measure a liberal education at the institutional level, we introduce a new methodological approach—the Liberal Arts and Sciences Educational Experience (LASEE) Framework—designed to measure a liberal education at the student level and answer the following research questions:

  1. What features define a liberal arts and sciences educational experience for students in US institutions?
  2. How can we measure the degree to which individual students experience such an education and how prevalent are these experiences across a subset of US institutions?
  3. What relationships exist between students’ exposure to particular liberal arts and sciences educational features and their academic, labor market, and civic outcomes?

To answer the first question, we built upon our previous research which identified three core components that capture the essence of a liberal education: pedagogy, curriculum, and community. Pedagogy measures deep engagement with content experts in and out of the classroom. Curriculum captures meaningful exposure to the liberal arts and sciences, emphasizing both breadth and depth of academic disciplines. Community speaks to experiences that offer diverse perspectives, skill development, and opportunities for growth. These three pillars speak to the mission and purpose of a liberal education, which emphasizes imparting intellectual and practical skills and experiences to foster lifelong learning and personal and social responsibility requisite for participation in a global society. Grounding ourselves in the existing literature, we identified a set of proxy metrics present in student administrative, course taking, and experiential data that, when taken together, approximate the core in-class and on-campus engagement associated with the liberal arts.

To answer the second and third research questions, we applied the LASEE Framework to student-record longitudinal data from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research’s (ICPSR) College and Beyond II (CBII) dataset, which encompasses more than 1.3 million bachelor’s degree students from across 19 public institutions and seven university systems. We refined the framework to measure students’ exposure to key liberal arts features, such as curricular breadth and depth, small class size, and engagement with diverse classmates and activities. A subset of students also responded to a post-graduation survey, which provided additional information on their educational experiences and outcomes. We then conducted regression analyses to examine how individual students’ experiences relate to academic, labor market, and civic outcomes.

We find that greater exposure to liberal educational features is positively associated with improved academic performance, including higher GPAs and six-year graduation rates. Among students for whom employment data are available, liberal arts experiences are linked to a higher likelihood of pursuing graduate education and greater self-reported career adaptability, civic and political engagement, and openness to diversity and pluralism. However, we find no relationship between liberal arts exposure and earnings ten years post-graduation, suggesting that these students were neither economically advantaged or disadvantaged in the labor market. These findings reinforce existing research on the liberal arts that emphasizes the civic engagement benefits afforded by liberal education, suggesting that such benefits do not come at the expense of individual economic returns. More detailed results and findings are included in the report.

These findings underscore the importance of deepening our understanding of the value of liberal education. Future studies should apply the LASEE Framework to additional datasets, particularly those including private institutions. Even at this stage, our findings emphasize the importance of evaluating higher education using a broad set of metrics—not just early-career wages, but also civic engagement, lifetime earnings potential, and long-term career adaptability. These results also highlight the value of a student-level framework, as experiences and outcomes can vary widely within the same institution. Overall, this study makes an important contribution to a more balanced, data-driven conversation about the role that liberal education plays in student success, economic productivity, and social cohesion. These insights can guide institutional decisions around curriculum and budgeting, and inform state-level investments in higher education.

Over the next several months, with support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF) and the American Council on Learned Societies (ACLS), we will delve further into particular findings from our report and their broader implications through a short blog series; keep an eye on Ithaka S+R’s blog landing page to read more.