To get a sense of the likely future for the liberal arts and social sciences in U.S. higher education, take a gander at two recent posts by The Good Enough Professor:
Want to Be My Provost or Chancellor?
These descriptions of the University of Illinois remind me of a bit of dialogue from the Wizard of Oz:
“Why, anybody can have a brain. That’s a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.”