STEM vs. liberal arts? That’s a fight we don’t need.

I received an interview request last week. A local reporter was interested in the ongoing public debate around “STEM vs Liberal Arts.”

She wondered about the extent to which students today are more interested in their career prospects versus their pursuit of a passion.

As a college dean at Sacred Heart University, I felt compelled to speak out: The current public discussion that puts STEM in competition with the liberal arts is anything but constructive.

STEM — which stands for science, technology, engineering, and math — is not in some kind of wrestling match with the liberal arts. (The term “liberal arts” has nothing to do with politics. It refers to a range of academic subjects from literature to the sciences.)

Pitting STEM against the liberal arts is a false dichotomy. It’s also a dangerous one. It’s false because science and mathematics can’t oppose the liberal arts. They are liberal arts disciplines themselves.

Moreover, at Sacred Heart University, all STEM degree programs are built on a strong liberal arts foundation. I’d argue that as STEM fields have gained attention — and external funding — the relevance and need for the range of the liberal arts becomes ever greater.

Developments in artificial intelligence, for example, have significant ethical, philosophical, and economic implications. We have to study those implications from outside the field as well as inside it. Similarly, we need the liberal arts to consider questions of privacy in a digital world, the proper limits of genetics, or the way that the internet affects political debate. No work, in STEM or any other field, gets done in a vacuum, and the liberal arts are uniquely suited for open-air inquiry.

Liberal arts education has had some important backers over the years. Thomas Jefferson valued education “above all things” because, he said, “informed” people can be trusted to safeguard their own freedom. Jefferson fervently believed that a broad-based education buttressed democracy — because it develops thoughtful citizens.

Thus it is dangerous to carve STEM out from within the liberal arts. To separate them, in fact, undermines the integrity of a humane civil society. It also belies the very purpose of the university itself as a place in which the whole range of learning and discovery is woven together. We don’t call it a “multiversity,” after all.

The liberal arts, you might say, are our best social investment in our democracy. But they’re also a great financial investment too.

The reporter who interviewed me wondered whether college students choose their major for love or money — that is, love of the subject, or marketability. I do see many students — and even more parents — concerned about whether a student’s major will lead to a well-paying job.

Many assume that a major in a professional or technical field is a better investment than the liberal arts.

But this assumption is simply wrong. There are a lot of reliable data that show that liberal arts majors do splendidly in a wide range of industries.

For example, in a 2014 report, “How Liberal Arts and Science Majors Fare in Employment,” authors Debra Humphreys and Patrick Kelly show that a broad-based liberal education clearly prepares students for financial and professional success. Two economists for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as reported in Inc., agree that studying the liberal arts is indeed a good investment.

According to Tom Perrault, chief people officer of Rally Health, “What can’t be replaced in any organization in the future is precisely what seems overlooked today: liberal arts skills.”

Putting down the liberal arts makes neither social nor economic sense. The liberal arts shore up our social foundations, and they also pay well. They deserve our pride and protection, not our suspicion.

With all of this evidence that liberal arts majors do so well in the job market, why do so many students and parents still think it’s risky to study liberal arts fields? We need to change the conversation to reflect the facts: Competition between liberal arts and the STEM fields is not a competition at all.

And the liberal arts give students timeless skills that build strong societies and expert workforces.