Last year, I wrote an article about how Harvard’s rich abundance of opportunity often went to waste as over 60 percent of its graduates entered the workforce in one of three industries: finance, consulting, and technology. I was frustrated with how the high starting salaries of three industries enthralled so many students to abandon their original and distinguishable passions.
Convinced that I would never subscribe to these industries’ monopoly, I reluctantly transitioned from the first two years at Harvard where I welcomed myriad subjects and activities, to my upperclassman years which came with sacrificing this innocent curiosity for a more realistic direction.
This internal conflict between choosing a professional path that fulfilled my personal interests and one that fulfilled the interests of our economy led me to the ultimate question of what the purpose of university education even is. The topic of income is inescapable; it dictates what school, subject, and lifestyles students choose to pursue. Yet I wondered if income also controlled the ultimate mission of the University as well.
I asked three university professors what the purpose of a Harvard education is – to give students the tools necessary to reach their financial goals, or to simply expand their exposure to the broader world. Professor of Psychology Daniel Gilbert compromised, and argued that Harvard succeeds at instituting a broad and worldly education needed for character building and professional achievements.
“The purpose of a liberal arts education is to provide students with knowledge of the past and the tools to make the future – with information about every area of human inquiry and with the skills to apply that information and advance it,” said Professor Gilbert. “A Harvard education should make you a better voter, a better parent, a better citizen, a better friend, a better doctor, lawyer, senator, and barista. A better human.”
Known for teaching renowned Harvard course Psychology 1 and for his New York Times bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, Gilbert argued that the greatest adaptation of the human race is “the culture we pass from one generation to the next,” and that Harvard is simply a “mechanism for that transfer.”
This opinion of Harvard’s utility depends on studying and advancing the broader qualities of human culture – an explanation that does not acknowledge the immediate financial benefit for individual students. Professor of Computer Science Stuart Shieber helped articulate that void.
Shieber attributed the purpose of the Harvard College experience to four concrete points: learning how to think systematically, developing empathy, gaining confidence, and acquiring marketable skills.
Although Shieber noted that the application of these properties depend on a student’s background, he argued that the College’s ultimate goal is to achieve them. “Systematicity … through certain kinds of course work, empathy … through the daily processes of communal living, confidence … by extracurricular participation, and skill acquisition … through hands-on practical learning.” Shieber’s perception of Harvard, though more tangible than Gilbert’s, still avoided what these four purposes arguably aim to achieve: a livelihood.
Professor of History Dan Smail acknowledges the weight of Harvard’s financial focus. “For a lot of students and their parents, I imagine [college] is definitely about achieving financial success … higher education over the past thirty years, especially in this country, has been entangled in the processes that drive growing wealth and income inequality.”
The ultimate purpose of a college education depends on the mission of the school itself. As a liberal arts school, Harvard pronounces its mission to “inspire every member of our community to strive toward a more just, fair, and promising world,” but realistically, this change cannot be achieved without the power and influence of money.
I’m not stating anything new. I am questioning whether Harvard, as one of the most legitimate sources of quality education, should guarantee their students success in the corporate world in order to carry out the admirable changes its mission aims to achieve rather than to make their students simply “better humans,” sas Gilbert argued.
As these three professors and the mission of the College clearly state, a Harvard education is set to achieve change: whether it is to the improvement of a global, personal, or generational level. Yet a Harvard education, as well as most other high-education institutions, is an investment that comes with the responsibility of some financial return. Today’s world values wealth over most genuine or moral measures, and to achieve any form of social change, one generally needs the platform or support to do so.
Marbella Marlo ’24 (mmarlo@college.harvard.edu) edits Sports for the Independent.