On May 2, Stephen Kershnar, a philosophy professor from SUNY Fredonia, submitted an opinion piece to the OBSERVER regarding what he deems to be “weaker” college majors. So I will be rebutting his piece point by point.

Kershnar prefaces his article by asserting that weaker majors should be discouraged. This is a sentiment that initially I found myself somewhat agreeing with. Many people were outraged at this and mockingly pointed out that Kershnar specializes in philosophy. One commenter quipped, “What’s the job outlook for Philosophy these days? Are Socrates and Plato hiring?” I admittedly chuckled at this, however making such remarks only perpetuates the same sentiment that Kershnar is guilty of. Philosophy is a very challenging major.

Here at SUNY Geneseo, the philosophy program is notoriously difficult, and so I would not look down on it. With that same respect, I would not look down on the “weaker” majors that Kershnar does. This is not to virtue signal and say I’m better for not looking down on weaker majors, as I do believe people should make the best of their college investment. For example, I would not be an English major if I were not going into the more lucrative legal field afterwards. However, these standards are entirely my own and should not be imposed on every other English major. In short, if somebody wants to major in art, education, music, etc., then they should be able to do that, otherwise college education would be more authoritarian than it already is. And if a major turns out to be a bad investment, then the student will learn that the hard way.

Where Kershnar begins to lose me is when he cites the 2014 report that federal and state governments spent $7,500 per college student, adding up to $160 billion total. He then points out the glaring issue of college debt with Americans and how the bill is offloaded “ominously” onto taxpayers, he does not cite any evidence for this point. Clearly college debt is an issue. However, Kershnar seems to separate college students from taxpayers when the two are not always mutually exclusive, creating a false dichotomy.

Furthermore, the overarching idea here seems to be that college is expensive and thus not a good investment unless you go for a stronger major. By that logic, if everyone went for fields such as economics, engineering math, etc., those fields would become oversaturated while Kershnar’s philosophy classes would be rendered even more obsolete. Furthermore, disallowing self-selection for majors would result in mismatch, as students who think more creatively would ultimately struggle when forced into more economically valuable fields like engineering. This would result in unqualified engineers.

It is also important to note that government education spending is a drop in the bucket compared to military expenditures. In 2015, military spending accounted for a massive 54 percent of discretionary spending according to The National Priorities Project, adding up to $598.5 billion. But according to Kershnar, it’s the broke college kid majoring in communications who is the detriment to our budget. How dare they try and receive a better education by getting a much-needed bachelor’s degree in a competitive job market.

Kershnar’s most preposterous claim is made in his convoluted 54-word sentence, where he advocates for abolishing weak majors as a whole. He goes as far as to push for eliminating colleges in their entirety if they even offer weak majors. Again, by this logic Kershnar, as well as hundreds of other professors, would be out of a job. Later on, he makes the claim that these weaker majors have students with low IQ’s. Here, he correlates IQ with SAT scores, because as we all know, IQ is the only determining factor in SAT scores. Kershnar is blatantly disregarding socioeconomic standing which allows for better access to study resources, personal motivation, test anxiety, and so on. What’s more puzzling is that this point serves no purpose other than as a subtle ad hominem attack on “weaker” majors.

Finally, Kershnar demonstrates that he seems to have a tenuous grasp on what he even deems to be a weak major. Thus far, it has been mainly based on economic value. But later on, he throws in that a lot of weak college majors depend on other fields. This is bizarre and even paradoxical, as all college students are forced to take general education requirements and thus classes in all other fields. So does Kershnar want college students to only be required to take classes within their respective major in order to be considered stronger? Also, what is inherently wrong with relying on other fields of study? Isn’t taking the mandatory foreign language and science classes supposed to make us more well-rounded students? I truly do not follow Kershnar’s logic, and I wonder if he even does.

Cody Austin is a graduating student from the State University of New York at Geneseo.