Colleges, like everybody else, are seeing their donations dwindle and public money cut. Parents are hoping for a return on their investment.

About six weeks ago Kate Zernike, writing for the New York Times, headed her article "Making College Relevant" and described how many colleges and universities are reshaping what they offer to respond to the economy.

She described how Thomas College in Maine bills itself "the home of the guaranteed job." The University of Texas at Austin, she said, is requiring that students learn to network, write resumes, and practice interviews.

It seems that the University of California in Los Angeles likes to poll its student body about objectives. Whereas in 1971 37% said it was essential to be well-off financially, 73% gave that importance to "developing a meaningful philosophy of life." Scroll down to 2009, ask the same questions. The results turn out to be almost exactly the opposite.

Zernike says that business has been the most popular major for more than a decade. Enrollment in European language courses has dropped, and enrollment in Chinese and Arabic has increased. The University of Louisiana has dropped its philosophy major, and Michigan State University has axed American Studies and the classics.

Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, was surprised to find out that, among a recent group of applicants, more than 600 had started businesses during their high school years. The university has responded by placing entrepreneurship courses across the curriculum, including such titles as "Financing Research Commercialization" and "Engineering Social Venture Creation." Coleman adds: "We do our best for students when we give them tools to be analytical...particularly in this world where people don't filter for you anymore. We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice."

"There's no immediate impact, that's the problem," says John J. Neuhauser, the president of St. Michael's College in Vermont. Its dean, Jeffrey Trumbower, adds: "People are looking for things they know will always be needed – accountants, scientists, mathematicians. Those also happen to be some of the most challenging majors academically, so we'll see how these trends hold up."

The Times has had 365 reader responses.

This one's from a year 2000 graduate of the University of Michigan.

I'll comment based on my experience as a liberal arts graduate from the Univ. of Michigan in the early 00s (I can say that now, right?). A number of my childhood friends graduated from our sister school Michigan State Univ. Although ribbing MSU students on their employment prospects has long served as a favorite past time for Wolverines, I will say without hesitation that our "peer" students at MSU who chose the trade disciplines like supply-chain management or advertising instead of the more "prestigious" traditional academic disciplines have fared much better in this economy. Because of their relative life stability, they can read Foucault on the side if they fancy. Sorry, academia. The liberal arts education is dead. On a side note, those entrepreneurial classes sound like nothing more than window dressing that the school can use to fleece more unsuspecting sheep (and their parents who foot the bill). Unless starting a t-shirt business in your dorm counts as a high-value business, people still need to develop meaningful skills before they develop a new product or service that will add value.

Here's another NYT reader who's a grandma now.

With grandchildren off to college next year, I have been thinking a great deal about the questions and thoughts posed in this article. I chose a professional track in the medical field when I went to college in 1956. But how I enjoyed the philosophy, history, art and religion courses I was able to take along with my major. While my chosen profession afforded me a successful and satisfying career for 40+ years, the liberal arts subjects I was able to study through my college days gave me a base from which I continued my learning throughout life.

Do my grandchildren still have the luxury to invest in that type of education? Or do the challenges of today's world and the excessive costs of college and grad school require them to be more pragmatic and settle for a field in which they can make a living? Does anyone really know? I think not.

Here's where we really need to know HOW YOU SEE IT: Email us at jradcli@mystudybuddy.org.