By Wayne Bowen, Ph.D.
Interim Associate Dean
College of Undergraduate Studies
General Education in the United States is a relatively recent development, emerging in the late 19th and early 20th century as a replacement for a classical curriculum designed for upper-class men at elite institutions. With the expansion of higher education in the 20th centuries, and especially after World War II, many universities and colleges instituted “General Education Programs” to restore consistency and a broader preparation for the experience of their students. There have been significant changes to general education over the decades, oscillating between a core curriculum and a menu of many options. Most of the world does not include general education in their university curriculum. Instead, they focus on specialized courses for each major or college. For example, students in a college of medicine in another country might not take any history or literature, whereas those in a college of arts would take no math or science. For those interested in the history of GE programs, hundreds of articles, books, and papers are available. Here are two brief ones:
Terry O’Banion (2016) A brief history of general education, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 40:4, 327-334.
Steven Mintz (2023), Gen Ed: Its Past, Present and Possible Future: Moving beyond today’s smorgasbord of disconnected courses, Inside Higher Education, April 2, 2023.