ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the innovations that have characterized the response of many institutions to the continuing challenge of providing a program of general education. Pressures for change in the nature and content of curricula have resulted in the erosion or demise of general education programs at the majority of postsecondary institutions emphasizing liberal education. Probably the most important factor affecting traditional conceptions of liberal education is the changing job outlook for liberal arts graduates. General education goes by many names: the core curriculum, the common learning, the "required" courses. Most attempts to distinguish between general and liberal education are futile because the words have been used interchangeably by too many people for too long to lend themselves to useful distinction. The general education movement, as it developed in the 1940s and 1950s, proved to be relatively short-lived, however.
