The President Swears There is Nothing Wrong With an Art History Degree

On a trip to Wisconsin this week to talk about his proposal to revitalize American manufacturing, President Obama took a little swipe at art history majors:

“[A] lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree. Now, nothing wrong with an art history degree — I love art history. So I don’t want to get a bunch of emails from everybody. I’m just saying you can make a really good living and have a great career without getting a four-year college education as long as you get the skills and the training that you need.”

Honestly, I am not offended by this. The world would be a very sad place with no art historians (I mean, arguably), but I don’t think they are going anywhere, and we do need to make sure we still have skilled tradesmen around to you know, build stuff and fix things and keep us functioning as a society.

Inside Higher Ed has a fun graph of other (Republican) politicians throwing us liberal arts majors under the bus. Guess who: “as an English major I can say this…. as an English major your options are uh, you better go to graduate school, all right? And find a job from there.”

Photo: jyuen1314

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