If thinkers like Vedder and Murray had more sway, some of the kids struggling with algebra in high school would be studying welding or car mechanics instead, and many of the ones whiling away four years on liberal arts courses would be studying nursing or software instead.

FORBES: Harvard Grad Seeks Babysitting Jobs

Still, students pursuing vocational degrees are almost always required to take some liberal-arts courses.

NEWYORKER: Live and Learn

Mark Taylor, a sociologist at Williams College in Massachusetts, is leading an effort to offer courses in the liberal arts.

ECONOMIST: Lessons of a virtual timetable

The new partners cover a broad range of institutions, from Ivy League universities Columbia and Brown, which has lagged in offering free online courses, to Wesleyan, a small liberal arts college, to a top-ranked music school, Berklee College of Music, to state schools like University of Maryland at College Park, to foreign institutions like Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Melbourne.

FORBES: Free Online Education Site Announces Big Expansion

Instruction would be for courses in the College of Business, Education, Health Professions, Liberal Arts or Sciences.

CNN: Colleges across U.S. helping displaced students

One reason why it is hard to design and teach such courses is that they cut across the insistence by top American universities that liberal-arts education and professional education should be kept separate, taught in different schools.

ECONOMIST: The difficulties of an American doctoral student

However, your darling liberal arts major can pursue any major and also prepare for the work place by taking just five or six courses.

FORBES: The Six Classes That Will Make Any College Grad Employable