It seems to me quite obvious a that the waning of liberal [2] education is a bad thing. But these fashionable leftist laments miss the point and fail to recognize some obvious causes of their own making.
In Kirk's time as now, the motivation to gain immediately marketable skills is a strong one. The difference is that elites like Robinson see such motivations as base and immoral, whereas Kirk saw them as deceptively un-utilitarian.
To the degree that ROI is a driver, the decline in general ed is certainly accelerated by massive price inflation of that last few decades. But there's another reason. The fact is liberal education in most American universities has become a shoddy product. In many, it's become quite illiberal.
This is not abstract for me. I recently helped my son decide on a college. It came down to two: School A, a school that's focussed on more practical topics such as business and engineering. Scarcely one-fifth of the coursework is general social sciences and humanities. And School B, an old and venerated bastion of liberal ed. Both are top 40 national universities.
Now, we had already weeded out all the schools that have entirely thrown over the western cannon for ideologically driven grievance-based curriculum. In other words, our list was pretty small. The last step in our decision process was to visit School B. I was hopeful because I want my son to go deep into great ideas, for the very reasons that Kirk gives.
Then came the orientation. Announcement: we have a new core curriculum.
Wha...?
Students, it turns out, will no longer choose from among courses in history, philosophy, literature, phycology, economics, etc. Now they will all be funneled through a few newly developed "integrated" courses. Courses where Greek classics are compared with Harry Potter. Classes that focus on the dying American Dream. Courses where science and history are now a branches of climate change activism.
No thanks. School A please.
This is what the market looks like when it's working.
[1] http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/the-inhumane-busi...
[2] It's worth pointing out that "liberal" here means classical liberal, which is nearly the opposite of "liberal" in the context of American politics.