Free Books and Graduate School

I attended my second Acton University last month in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  The four-day conference held stimulating talks, fabulous dinners, and a near-constant supply of coffee (which I utilized quite often).  A peculiar table of free books sat amidst the conversations and caffeination, off in the corner of the makeshift bookstore.  The free stacks looked lonely, so I naturally took thirteen books to furnish my shelves.  Even if left unread, perhaps they’d boost my intelligence by osmosis.

After waiting beside my bed for a month, the books’ forlorn cries for attention had become unbearable.  I read a series of articles in the Journal of Markets & Morality by Dr. William Pannapacker and Dr. Marc Baer of Hope College, debating the prudential value of graduate studies in the humanities.

Dr. Pannapacker argues in his article that the importance of PhD studies has been exaggerated, that a false market has been created, in which an oversupply of PhD students serve as cheap labor to college and university systems.  Coupled with social isolation and immense debt associated with several years of graduate studies, Pannapacker believes that “graduate school in the humanities is not about the balanced cultivation of the whole person (or the ‘life of the mind’); it is intensive and often costly professional training for positions that are not likely to be available for graduates.”

While not discounting graduate studies altogether, Pannapacker proposes that students should investigate other options first, pointing out that “there are other fields that value research, teaching, and service that do not require a decade of postgraduate training.”  He suggests internships, service-learning, and entry-level employment as a sort of discernment process, by which prospective graduate students can test their “calling” and make wiser choices.  Pannapacker focuses on a pragmatic reality, that the small market for PhDs has been flooded and must be corrected.

Dr. Baer, however, holds a different theory.  While agreeing debt remains problematic and that students should be counseled on their options, Baer argues that graduate studies in the humanities hold an intrinsic value for both the person and society.  Economic uncertainty exists, yes, but it should lead to thoughtful discernment rather than utilitarian judgments.

Quoting C.S. Lewis, Baer argues that if all choices regarding higher learning were dictated by utility, we have truly lost sight of education’s purpose.

Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice … If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.

C.S. Lewis, Learning in Wartime

While still a few years in the future, I myself have considered graduate school as an option.  I believe that both professors’ points are valid and applicable; in pursuing education of any level one must use prudence, yet circumstance does not negate its inherent value.  Each path should be examined with due care through vocational discernment, none rejected outright.