Liberal Workforce Development?

Recommendation 2, from page 8 of “College Learning in the New Global Century"
seems to offer a counterpoint to the brewing idea that offering Stackable Certificates is the way to ensure effective workforce development. LEAP suggests that 2-year colleges, traditionally and currently the institutions that focus primarily on skills development for employability, should integrate liberal education into all coursework. Here is the excerpt from the report, with my emphases:


"Nearly half the nation’s college students, and the majority of
students from low-income families, begin their studies in two-year
institutions. It should be a national priority to ensure that these
students, whatever their career choices and preparation, become richly
prepared for a changing economy, for the option of further study, and
for a lifetime of continuous learning—as employees and as citizens.

This recommendation neither requires nor anticipates that
community college students should study only, or primarily, what
are conventionally known as arts and sciences or “general education”
courses. Rather, it calls on two-year and four-year institutions, in every
state and region, to collaboratively remap the curriculum so that arts
and sciences and professional or “career” courses can work together,
from first to final years, to foster the broad knowledge, sophisticated
skills, personal and social responsibility, and demonstrated achievement
that every student needs and deserves."