Career or Deep Learning? Pondering the Purpose of College OUR oldest son is finishing up his junior year in high school, and we're already overwhelmed by what I've been calling the college challenge - trying to figure out what college he can get into and what we can afford. But there's also a bigger debate raging that hovers over all our concerns. What exactly is a university education for? Is it, narrowly, to ensure a good job after graduation? That's how Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, views it. He has made waves by wanting to shift state financing of public colleges to majors that have the best job prospects. Hello science, technology, engineering and math; goodbye psychology and anthropology. And Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, has introduced the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act, which would require, among other things, that students have access to data on university graduates" average annual earnings. Or is the point of a university degree to give students a broad and deep humanities education that teaches them how to think and write critically? Or can a college education do both? A little background: Before 1983, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in just about any subject "opened up lots of jobs," said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. You could get a B.A. in history and become an accountant. Then the economy underwent a cultural shift. Why the early 1980s? It was a combination of the deep recession of 1980-82 and the growth of computer-based technology. "We started to see a widening distribution of earnings by majors," said Professor Carnevale, who also served as chairman of the National Commission on Employment Policy under President Bill Clinton. And that trend has continued. "I was raised to think what you needed was a college degree," he said. That's not the game anymore. It's what you major in. So does that mean I should urge our son to pursue a degree he doesn't have any interest in because it may provide him with a higher-paying job - or any job, for that matter - after college? No, Professor Carnevale said, because if you don't like what you do, you won't do it well. The point is that "young people now need to have a strategy," he said. If you major in art, realize you will have to get a master's degree. The economic calculus has changed. Alex Tabarrok, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and author of the e-book "Launching the Innovation Renaissance" (TED Books), is not just worried about students finishing four years of college with no jobs, but also that they may never get to the graduation podium at all. "At least 40 percent of students drop out of four-year universities before graduation, and it's even higher out of community colleges," he said. We have the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. Everyone recognizes that something is not quite right. Mr. Tabarrok said that we, as a country, needed to look more closely at emulating apprenticeship programs offered in European countries that turn out highly skilled workers. "We tend to look down on vocational training in the United States, but in Europe, that's where the majority of the kids go," he said. The U.S. mind-set is that there is only one road to an education and to do anything else admits defeat. There are two main arguments against pushing more students into vocational training. The first is that it pigeonholes them in careers at a young age. "We don't want a system where people are tracked from early on," said Andrew Delbanco, a professor of humanities at Columbia University and author of the new book "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be" (Princeton University Press). The second is that a good liberal arts degree isn't simply a luxury when economic times are good, but a necessity at all times to create an engaged citizenry, he said. E-mail: shortcuts@nytimes.com