Liberal Arts, a Lost Cause?

bclintonk
Fri, 07 Aug 2015 18:29:05 +0000

@ Data10, re: post #49^^^,

I’m not surprised Stanford is moving so strongly toward STEM and technology in particular. This trend is much less pronounced at the top publics. At the University of Michigan for example:

1998-99 Bachelor’s degrees awarded:

STEM 35% (of which Engineering 17%, Bio 8%, Health professions 4%, Natural resources 2%, Architecture* 2%, Computer science 1%, Math 1%, Physical sciences 1%)

Humanities & Social sciences 41% (of which Social sciences + History 16%, Psych 10%, English 7%, Liberal arts/general studies 3%, Foreign languages & literatures 2%, Area & ethnic studies 2%, Philosophy 1%)

Visual & performing arts 6%

Non-STEM Pre-professional 14% (of which Business 6%, Parks & recreation 4%, Education 2%, Communications 2%)

2013-14 Bachelor’s degrees awarded:

STEM 39% (of which Engineering 16%, Bio 10%, Computer Science 4%, Math 3%, Health professions 3%, Architecture* 1%, Physical sciences 1%, Natural resources 1%)

Humanities & Social sciences 37% (of which Social sciences 14%, History 2%, Psych 10%, Foreign languages, literatures and linguistics 4%, English 3%, Area, ethnic, and gender studies 2%, Philosophy 1%, Liberal arts/general studies 1%)

Visual & performing arts 5%

Non-STEM Pre-professional 14% (of which Business 6%, Parks & recreation 3%, Communications/journalism 3%,
Education 1%, Public administration 1%)

I included architecture in STEM because it's in part a quite technical applied technology field, though I realize the aesthetic side of architecture is also important.

So some shift towards STEM, but not dramatic. A few things stand out. English took a big hit (-4), as did Liberal arts/general studies (-2). Most other humanities and social science fields were stable, including social sciences + history (reported as a single category in 1998-99 but separate categories in 2013-14), psychology, area & ethnic studies, and philosophy. Foreign languages & literatures actually grew (+2), but it’s not clear how much of this reflects growing interest in foreign languages and literatures, and how much is the growth of linguistics.

On the STEM side, the growth is concentrated in a few fields: computer science (+3), bio (+2), and math (+2). Engineering, health professions, natural resources, and architecture each declined by 1. In the case of engineering and health professions (primarily the nursing school), this is probably due to the fact that these are separate schools within the university to which students are admitted separately, which allows them to control their enrollment–and they simply have chosen not to grow as fast as the undergraduate student body as a whole. In the case of architecture and natural resources, I assume these are no longer perceived as “hot” fields with good job prospects.

Similarly, in the non-STEM pre-professional fields, business is stable because Ross controls the size of its admitted class; it and engineering have become two of the most selective schools at Michigan. Meanwhile, both parks and recreation (I didn’t even know we offered that) and education are both down 1, but that is matched by growth in communications and public administration, both up 1 (though in fairness, public administration wasn’t listed as a category in 1998-99; those students were probably lumped into social sciences).

So at Michigan,perhaps the question isn’t “is liberal arts a lost cause?” but rather “is the English department a lost cause?” If you look at the liberal arts as classically defined, namely the pure (not applied) sciences and math plus humanities plus social sciences, there’s been essentially no change (51% in 1998-99, 51% in 2013-14), with only a small uptick in biological sciences and math balanced by a decline in English and liberal arts/general studies, while the percentage of students seeking “practical” pre-professional degrees is also stable, albeit with some shifting in reaction to the job market. If you also include the visual and performing arts in the broad category of “liberal arts,” there’s been only a slight change (57% in 1998-99, 56% in 2013-14), but this is both within the margin for rounding and also possibly due to slower-than-university-wide growth in the visual and performing arts schools, which like engineering, business, and nursing have their own separate admissions pools, and in the case of visual and performing arts admit primarily on the basis of talent. Finally, it’s not even clear that the English department is losing enrollment to STEM, since foreign languages, literatures and linguistics as well as communications have also grown, quite possibly by attracting the same kinds of students who a couple of decades ago would have been more inclined to study English.