liberal education

American  

noun

1. an education based primarily on the liberal arts, emphasizing the development of intellectual abilities as opposed to the acquisition of professional skills.

2. wide experience and education.

   Foreign travel gave him a liberal education.

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Example Sentences

In that sense, “The Rise and Fall of Rational Control” is an exercise in the liberal education that was already threatened when Mr. Mansfield began teaching History of Modern Political Philosophy in the 1960s.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

“I don’t think you can have a classical liberal education, for example, without grappling with Marx,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2023

The real question is how to design safe spaces that aid the goals of liberal education.

From New York Times • Apr. 7, 2022

A liberal education is most students’ last chance to plumb society’s abysses with wise guidance.

From Salon • Apr. 22, 2019

Bryn Mawr had done what a four-year dose of liberal education was designed to do: unfit her for eighty percent of the useful work of the world.

From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison