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[brook]

Thank you all for the feedback.  I suppose my follow-up question is, what does the future hold for the mediocre students who will transfer to our so-so SLACs or the low-ranked state University in the area? 

If you are asking about career prospects, an average student who attends a middlin' school would do better majoring in a professional field, like accounting, business, engineering, nursing, teaching, and so on. These are not generally easy fields, but an average student who works hard can make it.  And while there are no guarantees, the prospects are pretty good for leading a OK-ish to comfortable middle class life. The ideal field of choice also depends on the job market in your area, of course.

Well I suppose if we can improve math skills then we'll have more students who can actually complete those types of programs at the transfer schools.  Unfortunatly, math is a huge problem for the majority of our students and prevents them from doing those programs.

Before I forget, thanks for answering my question a few weeks back about "intergrated math" on another thread.

[t_r_b]

If a student has already decided on a particular career, or has personal/familial/financial reasons for needing to make big bucks immediately after graduating, then it makes sense to pursue one of the more marketable majors. But for most students, the advice you're giving (pick something you find interesting, maintain a strong GPA) sounds good to me.

Another consideration here is long-term career flexibility. Relatively few Americans these days stay in a single career from graduation through retirement. The more general skills imparted by a liberal arts major may serve students better down the road than the more specific skills they'd pick up with an applied degree. The applied degree will net them a higher paying job starting out, but one or two or three decades from now that career might no longer be viable (or they might decide they hate it, etc.)