Duke Chronicle - “As humanities lose numbers to STEM nationwide, Duke grapples with similar trends”

Parents Forum
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An old article from last year but still relevant.

As a Duke alum who double majored in the sciences and humanities, I was disappointed but not surprised to read about the sharp decline in humanities majors at Duke, a trend at virtually every college. Humanities departments really do seem to be in serious trouble unless they can convince students that they provide good job prospects.

One wonders if a declared interest in the humanities — with the background to back it up, of course — will provide much more of a boost in the admissions lottery than in years past.

Many of the disciplines with zero students at Duke completing primary majors in 2022 — including classical languages, French studies, German, Italian studies, religious studies, Russian, Slavic and Eurasian studies and women’s studies – are humanities fields, and most majors with no enrollment are Bachelors of Arts degrees.

Enrollment in religious studies has declined significantly over Goodacre’s time at Duke.

“For this year, we only have one graduating major in spring 2023,” he said. “When I first came to Duke in 2000, we would regularly have 30+ majors. So that’s a huge decline.”

Paralleling the decline of religious studies majors, between 2011 and 2022 the number of primary history majors saw drastic change, decreasing from 90 to 22. English majors similarly decreased from 72 to 22, and philosophy majors from 19 to 11. Political science, while still remaining popular among students, also saw a sharp decrease from 113 to 64 primary majors.

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Wow, these drops are shocking.

I imagine the cause is multifactorial. Certainly the nation-wide shift toward STEM. But also perhaps the increasing selectivity at Duke. Once a school gets to a single digit admission rate, it starts selecting for a certain type of student–the sort of student who wouldn’t risk ruining their prospects with a major like Russian or Slavic studies known for difficulty but low pay-off. Why wreck your GPA toiling away on something like that? Also, it seems that AOs at elite schools prefer students who know their “passion” and already have a resume that demonstrates it. “I have no idea what I want to do, I’m doing a little of this and a little of that while exploring, and getting the occasional B+” is not the kind of student these schools want, unless maybe they are hooked. But I imagine this is just the type of student who might wind up being an outstanding Eurasian studies or Philosophy or Religion major.

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This isn’t a new issue, and it occurs at far more than just Duke. While more prominent at highly selective private colleges with open major enrollment, less selective colleges also show a similar type of pattern. For example, among all US colleges, the number of English bachelor degrees by year is below . Many non-STEM majors have been on a steady decline since the 2008 great financial crisis.

English Bachelor Degrees by Year in US
2003 to 2008: ~55k
2010: 53k
2012: 52k
2014: 46k
2016: 41k
2018: 38k
2020: 36k
2021: 35k (most recent available year)

As an example of a highly selective college with open major enrollment, I’ll use Stanford, as they have especially good reporting. The following majors at Stanford all have single digit enrollment (0-9 students) across a combined total of all years of students – all foreign languages and language studies; all single ethnic group studies; feminist/gender studies; religious studies; archeology; all school of earth, energy, and environmental science majors except earth systems; environmental engineering; etc. In contrast, CS enrollment grew from 141 students in 2008 to 865 students in 2023, making CS by far the most popular major of all time at Stanford. Nothing else is even in the ballpark. Number 2 economics has an enrollment of 227 – roughly 1/4 the major enrollment of CS.

There was a time when major enrollment was very different, where the most popular majors were non-STEM fields. For example, Stanford’s second most popular major of all time is history. History major enrollment peaked at over 600 during Vietnam and reached over 300 during fall of Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but today only has an enrollment of 47. After history, the 2nd most popular major was English. English major enrollment peaked at over 400 students during the 1960s and has been gradually dropping since then.

I think the change in major enrollment is both a reflection of which fields students perceive to be prioritized and what fields students perceive to have superior work opportunities. For example, the timing of the English decline across all US colleges noted above started during the great financial crisis, but the timing also coincided with Obama’s 2009 Education to Innovate program, with stated goals “to increase STEM literacy, enhance teaching quality, and expand educational and career opportunities for America’s youth.” The program included over $1 billon funding for STEM education. During this period I expect students had increasing pressure from parents, friends, teachers, and the general community to favor STEM fields over fields like English. This also contributes to why English major enrollment kept dropping after the great financial crisis was over and there was largely economic prosperity.

Employment prospects have also changed. At colleges like Stanford or Duke, ,CS majors often average triple the starting salary to the majors with low enrollment. For example, in Princeton’s senior survey, CS majors reported an average of $170k/year total comp compared to $40k/year for English majors and $30k/year for comparative literature. Students are aware of this difference in early career employment, and that difference influences major selection. There didn’t used to be this extreme a degree of variation in early career earnings between majors.

There is not a simple solution, as it depends on external forces beyond the college’s control. Stanford tried a CS+X program a few years ago. The idea was students could combine a major in a humanities field they were passionate about like English or foreign language with a more financially pragmatic CS major, integrating the 2 fields in to a joint major. It wasn’t popular with students, so Stanford ended the program. Most students just wanted to major in CS, without the +X. The small minority who wanted to study the other humanities field were fine with a double major, minor, or just taking electives; rather than requiring a special joint degree.

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Great information ! Thank you OP (@warblersrule) & @Data10.

Not discussed above, however, is the sobering effect of the rampant rise in the cost (COA) of earning an undergraduate degree. Consumers need to exercise more discretion when purchasing a college degree.

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Note that the numbers concern Primary Majors. Nowadays students may declare a “practical” major for their primary major and add a “passion” major which is their de factor secondary major.

Stanford is a bit particular due to its location - interest in Cs+X or double majoring (pragmatic/passion combo) would likely be greater at HYP and perhaps even MIT.

But still, the drop has been precipitous.
(To the point I wonder if scarcity will make their star rise again, especially if the degree is from top universities/LACs.)

Major companies could reverse this trend if they made an announcement along the lines of “To diversify our workforce, we commit to hiring topnotch Humanities graduates and training them”.
They could list majors they consider interesting and the Major GPA they see as a basic cut off.

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We live in a capitalist economy/society so this is very unlikely to occur under the current conditions.

The trend of supporting sinking majors was noticed by some about 15 years ago when applying as classics major–made clear by the student’s essay–was hoped to be an advantage for a Princeton applicant. That individual was accepted.

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I’m not sure why though - Quant skills now permeate a lot of fields but
The City (in London) loves History, Foreign Language, and Classics majors from Oxbridge; these are students who stopped any Stem study in Year 11 aka 10th grade and still they manage to learn the skills they need.
Even HEC and ESCP, the best business schools in Europe, which used to swear by quant skills only, now have a recruiting stream for Philosophy, Classics, Literature, or History majors, as well as for students with a very high level of cultural&linguistic proficiency in one or 2 world languages, subjects they used to scoff at. I’m not sure why and 10 years ago anyone would have laughed, but these subjects (* ) became a respectable gateway to hitherto quants-only programs.
It may be puzzling but it works.
So, there’s nothing hindering brand name US companies from deciding what would diversify the thinking or skills or whatever in their workforce, choose how to select candidates, then making an announcement along the lines above.

(* their problems is that not enough top students take them up on it. Top philosophy majors aren’t necessarily interested in international corporations or perhaps it’s still too new for these subjects to be considered an acceptable “in” similar to the Princeton student, whereas the City pipeline is old enough not to puzzle or surprise.)

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It is hard to justify getting over $100k in debt to get a history or sociology degree. The numbers just don’t pencil out. Conversely, I keep seeing reports about an increasing number of high school grads entering the trades rather than pursuing a college degree. In SE Michigan newly minted machinists earn over $100K a year, before overtime… with no debt. We know a 23 year old machinist who earns $60/hour so he brings home over $120K/year straight time (I don’t know if he has a specialty certification that would boost his hourly rate). Add just a little overtime and he is easily earning $150K. We know people who own machine shops or earth moving companies who enjoy lifestyles that few college grads their ages with engineering and business degrees - much less English Lit majors - have.

Now I am going to bring up an issue that might trigger some here on CC, but it is the elephant in the room. The traditional mission of a university was to advance human knowledge, impart knowledge on students and train them to think. Many humanities programs have abandoned this mission, and instead concentrate on training activists, or furthering a specific worldview. After seeing numerous reports about students and faculty protesting, shouting down speakers, destroying property and even assaulting people with views that are out of favor, many parents are questioning the value of a humanities degree.

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Seems that many choose humanities majors because they do not like math or anything related to it (some high school math-phobic students here seem not to realize that parts of philosophy are math-adjacent). So there may be a self-selection effect here in that humanities graduates (except maybe philosophy) would be more likely to have an aversion to a quant-heavy job.

Also, what you are describing appears to be elite employers hiring from elite universities. The much larger environment of overall employers and the full range of universities may be significantly different.

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Many of these CS-related jobs appear to be going away. The danger is that you have too many CS grads chasing too few jobs… The natural equilibrium is at a lower price point…

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If I’m not mistaken, the number of CS graduates went from 100,000 in 2018 to 600,000 in 2023 -right as some tasks went to AI.

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Not sure if it would help but I’ve of the view that if you plan to take / obtain a Masters degree in the future, a “Liberal Arts” education for university is the way to go - maybe that is one way to advice students these days.

But yes, I get it, most just decide to take STEM at the expense of humanities courses for several reasons: practicality (job market etc), interests and the like…

Times have changed (a lot)! :smiling_face:︎

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CS seems to be the big one that’s driving a lot of this. The salary numbers there are just so high that it almost seems silly to NOT go for it when you don’t really know what you want to study yet.

But the idea that it’s a recent trend, or even one from 2008 doesn’t seem quite right to me. I’ll note that as an engineering student in the way back 1990’s, the running joke we’d tell (to ourselves) was:

“What did the philosophy major say to the engineering major?”

answer: “Would you like fries with that!”

Of course, philosophy majors always got the last laugh since they’re later year earnings were typically higher!

Anyway, my take is that the high cost of college today now encourages students to prioritize where the cash is or where they think the cash will be.

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But were the philosopher major’s later year earnings higher because they went on to earn a more marketable degree like a JD?

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Unclear from what I’d seen, but that would make sense. Or they go on to become CEOs or other heads of business, possibly at a higher rate than engineers.

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But that’s a pyramid, so many fewer positions available…

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It’s not just a US trend. The same thing is happening here in Canada, maybe even more so, in large part because Canadian employers on the whole are a rather unimaginative bunch and lazy. You want a job in x you need a degree in x and 2-5 years experience (why train new graduates when you can let someone else do that and then poach them once they’re trained)? Then they moan about a skills shortage.

It’s also driving increasing demand for co-op programs beyond traditional professional degree tracks. Canadian employers are much less likely to hire humanities graduates for anything more than your basic run of the mill entry level position that requires no more knowledge than a high school education, and many don’t provide internal training opportunities to advance either. If you want that you’ll need to do it on your own time and dime. For that reason it makes sense for Canadian students to specialize and the demand for professional degree programs that tie directly to specific careers has sky rocketed. The structure of undergraduate degrees where you’re most frequently admitted directly to a major also encourages that. You want to work in business you get a degree in business. You want to work in Engineering you get a degree in Engineering etc. The biggest debate you might get is should I do computer science or software engineering or should I do electrical or computer engineering? Students who might be attracted to studying humanities (or the social sciences) are often reluctant to do so because they can’t see a pathway forward to gainful employment post graduation without continuing on to some type of professional or graduate school.

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I find it sad that the humanities have declined so much, particularly at a school like Duke. This is one of the advantages of Top X schools that students from less prestigious schools don’t necessarily have as easily…and that is getting the benefit of the doubt about the rigor of the degree and a host of connections that might more easily connect into more desireable/highly rejective fields. For instance, English majors who get jobs straight out of college for nationally known periodicals, or who want to go into some form of consulting, etc. Although it’s definitely possible for humanities majors at non-Top X schools to make transitions into various professions (and they do!), I do think that Top X schools can make those transitions easier.

I think it’s so ironic that many students interested in STEM fields are gunning for Top X schools when they would have pretty comparable results from many less-rejective schools, but in fields where a Top X name would be advantageous to help grease some wheels, those fields are decreasing in popularity at those schools.

For those interested in reading additional thoughts on the humanities, these two threads may be of interest.

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So why not just double-concentrate: practical major + passion/hobby major?

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Historical totals are listed at Degrees in computer and information sciences conferred by postsecondary institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Academic years 1964-65 through 2021-22 . Excluding influence from COVID, the rate seems to be a little under 10% increase per year. So during the 5 year period from 2018 to 2023, I’d expect a ~50% increase, not a 500% increase from 100k to 600k.

The numbers above represent totals across all US colleges. Highly selective private colleges show much more rapid rates of increase. None I am aware had a 6x increase over a span of 5 years, but all with open major enrollment show large increases since 2008. Some examples are are below. All totals show number of students who declared the major, rather than number of bachelor’s degree recipients.

Harvard – 85 students in 2008 → 593 in 2022 (7x increase over 14 years)
Stanford – 141 students in 2008 → 865 in 2023 (6x increase over 15 years)
MIT (VI-3) – 250 students in 2008 → 794 in 2023 (3x increase over 15 years)

The numbers below show completions, not major enrollment.

Duke – 26 in 2012 → 274 in 2024 (10x increase in 10 years)

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