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College wasn’t always seen as a pipeline to a paycheck. For most of its history, a college education represented the pursuit of knowledge.

Students studied philosophy, literature, history and rhetoric — not because these subjects led directly to a profession, but because they cultivated judgment, curiosity and the ability to engage with complex ideas and social realities. The goal was intellectual growth: to produce people capable of reasoning, questioning and participating thoughtfully in our world.

That vision hasn’t disappeared, but it has been overshadowed.

Students are now told, explicitly and implicitly, that the purpose of a degree is employability. Majors are evaluated by salary outcomes. Departments are justified through job placement statistics. Syracuse University recently announced plans to close nine humanities-based majors, and it’s not alone.

This shift is understandable. When the average private college tuition is $45,000 per year, it’s hard to justify studying something without a guaranteed return on investment. For many students, studying philosophy or literature feels indulgent — if not irresponsible — when weighed against degrees........

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