Readers Write: Liberal arts education, Uber and Lyft, TikTok

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I am a subscriber who is disappointed with the editorial “What’s that degree going to be worth?” (March 23), which advocates for measuring the value of college by the reported starting salaries of graduates.

The first problem is that the Department of Employment and Economic Development tool cited includes only wages for people employed in Minnesota. Our Minnesota college alumni working outside the state, those who are self-employed, and those who seek additional schooling or fellowships directly after graduation are excluded. A better tool is the Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) Explorer, which shows earnings at one, five and 10 years after graduation, and includes 96% of the U.S. workforce.

A second problem is that the editorial mischaracterizes the actual cost of college attendance. After need-based financial aid and merit scholarships, the average net tuition for first-year students at Minnesota private colleges is under $15,000.

Most importantly, it suggests that starting salary is the best measure of whether college is worth it. That’s a mistake. While liberal arts grads make less than people with technical degrees in the first few years after graduation, over time, their leadership and problem-solving skills result in positions of greater responsibility and outsized impact on society.

Graduates of Minnesota’s private colleges include entrepreneurs, executives, health care professionals, educators and scholars, scientists and engineers, elected officials and policymakers, creatives, attorneys and leaders in countless other professions. The fact that some of them took lower-wage jobs right after graduation is not a good reason to rule out a liberal arts degree.

Of course, students (and their parents) should be well-informed before selecting a college. But they should consider what liberal arts grads can accomplish over an entire career — and not base their decisions on the average hourly salary in Minnesota two years after graduation. According to the Strada Foundation, “Liberal arts grads ... hit their stride later in their careers, experiencing rapid wage growth in their late 30s and early 40s.”

Since we know that college completion is the single most powerful tool our young people have to achieve social mobility, our efforts should be directed at encouraging them to continue their educations, not discouraging them with misleading scare tactics.

Suzanne M. Rivera, St. Paul

The writer is president of Macalester College.

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When the Editorial Board opines about the value of higher education, which it should, it would be more helpful if it showed a clear understanding of what is meant by “liberal arts” and a “liberal arts education.”

The statement, “Count us among the surviving advocates of a liberal education. We believe that society needs its poets and philosophers, just as it needs physicists and accountants,” reveals the writers’ mistaken impression that the liberal arts refer only to the arts and humanities. This mistaken impression may be understandable for those less familiar with higher education, given that the term “liberal arts” includes the word “arts.” But I assume that most if not all members of the board have a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) degree and should know that the liberal arts have always (from the ancient Greeks to the present day) referred to a full range of knowledge and study, which includes mathematics, the natural sciences, history, philosophy, the social sciences, music, writing, communications and the fine arts.

Top feeder programs for Ph.D.s in physics include many liberal arts colleges. (Carleton College in Minnesota is noteworthy in this regard.) Similarly, it is typical for medical schools to draw a large portion of their admitted students from liberal arts colleges. And graduates of liberal arts colleges populate law schools and graduate schools of business, sometimes even going on to pursue careers in accounting.

I have taught in liberal arts colleges for more than 40 years and the thousands of students I have taught, advised and mentored have gone on to work in a vast range of professional careers, from science, health care, law and business to film, music and journalism. I believe they would all attest to the value of a liberal arts education to their lives and careers, whatever profession they practice. Denigrating “the liberal arts” as a low-wage prospect for future college students is patently absurd. The Star Tribune Editorial Board should refrain from perpetuating common myths about the liberal arts and from using these misunderstandings as a framework for interpreting employment data.

Michael Griffin, St. Paul

I’ve been closely following the pay issues associated with Uber and Lyft service. I think there are bigger and potentially more consequential issues awaiting the transportation industry in the not-too-distant future. My wife and I recently returned from Phoenix. We downloaded the Waymo app and requested a driverless vehicle to pick us up. It kept us apprised of its approach, honked its horn when it arrived and the vehicle (a Jaguar) already “knew” where we wanted to go with a quoted price. We were nervous as we had selected a crowded mall as our destination. It not only drove us there safely, but it stopped and dodged pedestrians and dropped us off in front in a very safe spot. When we were ready to get picked up, we used the app to request a pickup. It was waiting for us in the same spot where it had dropped us off and took us home without incident. We then watched it depart to pick up the next driver. Artificial intelligence is here to stay, whether we like it or not.

Rod Martel, Minneapolis

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I just finished reading the article “Minnesota can do better than Uber, Lyft” (Opinion Exchange, March 23) and found the following sentence humorous: “Minnesota has all of the talent to create its own rideshare apps.” This sounded so similar to the logic that led to the debacle formerly known as MNLARS.

For those Minnesotans who didn’t live through that nightmare, it was a homegrown software program that took over 10 years to develop, was two times the original budget and eventually cost the state $100 million before it was mercifully euthanized in 2021.

It’s well known around Minnesota government that MNLARS was saddled with problems long before it went live in 2017. An audit revealed many of the reasons the system fell short of expectations, including early miscalculations of the scope and cost of the project, a failure to reconfigure the state’s antiquated business processes before building a system on top of them, sloppy governance and insufficient testing of technology that frustrated three governors and numerous agency heads. Not to mention the Minnesotans who tried to renew their tabs or obtain a license.

We have two apps that work. Figure out how to play in the same sandbox with Uber and Lyft. Please.

Tim Rubash, Apple Valley

Last week’s column by Jennifer Brooks, “Hey, America, let’s get our priorities straight” (March 22), missed the mark.

When a Chinese-controlled company can identify 9-year-olds among its millions of users by their faces, instruct them who their congressperson is and how to reach them, and instruct them to send a message supporting TikTok — all within hours — we should be concerned as U.S. citizens.

Yes. Gun violence is a serious problem. But so is a Chinese-controlled company like TikTok. Congress should shut down TikTok if it doesn’t sell to a U.S. company — and pass sensible gun control laws.

Nicole Webb, Minneapolis