[mathking]

There is sometimes confusion when people discuss liberal arts majors and liberal arts schools (like Wesleyan). Liberal arts schools actually produce the bulk of our scientists in America. Meaning most of the undergrad science majors who go on to get a PhD in science. (This is probably in part due to the focus of education in liberal arts schools and in larger part due to the absence of graduate students to help professors with research. Meaning undergraduate science majors at liberal arts schools get a lot more lab time and research opportunities than their counterparts at large universities.) While a liberal arts major at a big university is generally a multi-disciplinary major with lots of general coursework in a variety of fields, at a liberal arts school students have majors in various academic disciplines. I have a liberal arts degree in mathematics. It was a math major with as much or mathematics as any math major. It got me into graduate school in mathematics.

I think the thrust of his article is simply a cautionary note against thinking that throwing all of our free educational resources at STEM education in an era of declining educational resources.