Is There a Decline of the Liberal Arts at UChicago?

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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This article looks at data that would support this claim:

At the school described in the Atlantic not so long ago as the “last bastion” of people who read, the humanities and arts are declining at least as quickly as at peer institutions. This decline touches all but three humanities majors. The rest are proportionally smaller than they were 20 years ago.

At the same time, the economics major has experienced unprecedented growth. Last year, over 40 percent of students graduated with a degree in economics—double the share from 20 years ago. The most obvious culprit is the business economics specialization introduced in 2018.

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My child was there when Business Economics was introduced. She agrees with the assessment in this article that the Biz Econ kids are less “life of the mind” and generally weaker than students in other programs.

That said, UChicago still has an extensive Core that all students have to go through, and because it has a quarter system, allows more exposure to humanities than colleges with semester systems.

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Toward the end of the article there are a couple charts that show the relative decline of non-Economics HASS students and graduating primary degrees has happened at other Ivy Plus as well, and it started at Chicago long before Chicago introduced Business Economics. Specifically in terms of graduating primary degrees, there has been a bit of a convergence, but still, Chicago continues to have significantly more than the Ivy Plus average, so in that sense I think Chicago remains a relatively good choice among Ivy Plus sorts of institutions for non-Economics HASS.

But of course one is not necessarily restricted to just Ivy Plus institutions for undergrad. My sense is that with, say, LACs, there are sometimes trends like this apparent as well, but it varies between LACs. So you should still be able to find plenty of LACs with a much higher percentage of non-Economics HASS than Chicago (even if it would have been higher still at those LACs 20 years ago).

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If U Chicago did not allow their economics major to expand/grow, would they be able to remain competitive among the peers listed in the article? My guess is no.

Although I tend to prefer business majors these days, hiring smart early career professionals from top schools, who major in humanities, has become a critical part of my company’s hiring strategy.

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Note that Checking in on the New Business Economics Track – Chicago Maroon (from 2019) had survey results showing that most Chicago students thought that business economics was less rigorous than regular economics.

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Perhaps some students are afraid of math and see more math = more rigorous. The regular economics major requires math through multivariable calculus and linear algebra as well as calculus-based statistics, while the business economics major requires no math beyond general education and accepts non-calculus-based statistics. See Economics | Academic Catalog | The University of Chicago

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Which path is preferred by the IB kids/firms? That drives demand beyond anything logical for the prestige crowd.

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There was nothing preventing their existing Econ program from growing, as it is one of the country’s most desirable. There was also no shortage of strong applicants for this program.

My belief is that UChicago’s moves over the last decade all have to do with propping up its finances. Academically it is on par with many Ivies, but due to poor management for decades, its endowment is well below most of them.

Before 2017, UChicago only had EA and RD, and still had a yield rate on par with Princeton at the time. But by adding ED1 & ED2, they were able to attract more high income families more likely to pay full tuition while at the same time advertising an expansion of their financial aid package. Likewise, I suspect Business Economics also attracts higher income families and students interested in high paying careers.

The major IB firms readily hired real Econ majors, who learned the relevant finance through clubs. I don’t know about how readily IB firms hire Biz Econ majors. They’re not weak students in comparison to other colleges. They are just considered weaker relative to other UChicago students.

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Same.

In fairness, operating a really great non-economics HASS program has its challenges financially. Your alums are not necessarily as capable on average of providing large gifts. Available research grants may be much smaller in scale. You won’t be sharing as many resources with the sorts of professional programs, and sometimes operations (like hospital centers), that have much better financial situations.

Obviously plenty of US institutions have done it, and are continuing to do it. But as you point out, Chicago specifically has apparently made some serious unforced errors financially. And in that context, it makes sense it would be looking for ways to increase undergrad programs with less challenging financial circumstances.

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For top tier IB firms, physics, engineering and math are still going to be appealing vs. the “less quantitatively rigorous” majors. But that’s last year. By the time today’s freshman are ready to interview, the combination of AI and what is likely to be a soft hiring environment means it’s anyone’s guess.

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Those looking for math skill will more likely find regular economics majors (required to take multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and calculus based statistics) to be more desirable than business economics majors (no math beyond general education and non-calculus statistics).

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This is impressive amount of detail and research for a college newspaper article. There is even a GitHub with the code.

I find the subject title to be misleading, which is likely an attempt to get clicks. As the article notes, the decline in humanities / non-econ social science major enrollment/degrees is part of a trend throughout the United States that has been present for decades and is comparable to other Ivy+ colleges, as pictured in the graphic below (from article).

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What’s unique about Chicago and seems to largely be the point of the article is instead the increase in economics at Chicago, which seems to be largely driven by Chicago’s business economics specialization.

I think another contributing factor why Chicago differs from peers is lack of as much of a tech presence. At typical Ivy+ colleges, CS/tech major enrollment has increased as humanities / non-econ social science majors have declined, leading to CS becoming the most enrolled major or roughly tied for most enrolled major. For example, in the latest NCES stats, the largest number of degrees at Princeton were as follows. CS enrollment has dramatically increased over past decade, becoming most enrolled major by a wide margin.

Princeton Majors
1 . Computer Science – 213
2. Biology / Neuroscience – 133
3. Public & International Affairs – 130
4. Economics – 124
5. Ops Research & Financial Engineering – 74

The totals for Chicago are completely different, as listed below. Economics enrollment dominates over CS, as well as everything else. Economics is similar sized to the rest of the top 5 combined. CS enrollment at Chicago increased by a factor of ~10x since 2012, but it’s starting from a lower %, so even with a 10x increase CS is still a small fraction of econ.

Chicago Majors
1 . Economics – 548
2. Biology / Neuroscience – 189
3. Computer Science – 178
4. Mathematics – 134
5. Political Science – 75

This may partially relate to different reputations of the respective colleges. Chicago is one of the best known colleges in the world for econ. Kids who are interested in econ are more likely to favor attending Chicago. Chicago does not have the same reputation for CS. Chicago also doesn’t offer the more common engineering majors like mechanical or electrical, so CS gets little crossover from would be engineering majors pursuing the higher earnings associated with CS.

Median post grad earnings for the 2 schools are below from CollegeScorecard (mostly Pell Grant kids), 4 years after graduating. At Princeton, median CS earnings are well above econ, but at Chicago the 2 majors are similar. This aligns with being more likely to choose econ over CS at Chicago than at Princeton.

Princeton
Computer Science – $218k
Economics – $161k
Political Science – $89k
Psychology – $63k

Chicago
Computer Science – $178k
Economics – $160k
Political Science – $88k
Psychology – $60k

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