I think Washington & Lee, Yale, and similar that have been discussed in this thread are more the exception than the rule. The national trend is more of decreased interest and decreased enrollment in most humanities majors. I previously mentioned a decreased interest in CS, including a sharp drop at CS enrollment in Stanford since 2023 and similar trends at other colleges. While CS enrollment has decreased and may continue to decrease, students haven’t been flocking to humanities instead of CS, with the possible exception of history*. Example stats are below.
*Several other universities also show a recent increase in history, which may relate to being perceived to be a key historical time.
Stanford Major Enrollment Changes From 2023 → 2025
Data Science: +95% (increase)
Design: +71%
Electrical Engineering: +39%
History: +38%
Bioengineering: +30%
Mathematics: +23%
…
Symbolic Systems: -19% (decrease)
Computer Science: -22%
…
Sociology: -43%
English: -56%
Foreign Languages: -60%
Philosophy: -60%
… Studies -61%
High endowment per student private colleges like Stanford can largely afford to let major sizes change as student interest changes, and they seem to be doing so. For example, only 1 student at Stanford across all years is currently enrolled in the Spanish major, and Stanford seems to be able to maintain the Spanish major in spite of the low enrollment. Students are still enrolling in Spanish classes enough to support offering the same classes 3 quarters per year, even though they aren’t majoring in Spanish. A far larger number of students are pursuing a Spanish minor than Spanish major.
However, less wealthy colleges may need to restructure or eliminate low enrollment humanities majors like this. Some public colleges also have state rules about low enrollment majors that may limit options. Some of the many examples of changes during the 2025 calendar year include:
- Syracuse: Eliminated 20 majors in Arts & Humanities School
- Indiana Publics: Eliminating 100+ programs, 68 of which have 0 enrollment
- Wisconsin: Eliminated 82 programs with low enrollment
- Chicago: Restructuring/consolidating humanities amid their budget challenges (Chicago has abnormally high debt, combined with reduced federal funding)
As I touched on in an earlier post, I don’t think Washington & Lee’s apparent approach of providing misleading information about employment outcomes for humanities majors is desirable. I also don’t think the college can do much about notably different average employment outcomes for different majors and career paths, as that is largely beyond the college’s control. Instead I’d favor adapting with changing times and interests. If students don’t want to major in humanities, let them major in something else. This doesn’t mean that the humanities departments have to end. This also doesn’t mean students don’t want to take any humanities courses. Many (most?) students prefer taking humanities courses to courses graded on numbers/math/calculations and will gladly take humanities courses as electives, if given the opportunity. Some students would favor a humanities minor paired with their STEM major and associated career path. Most of the colleges emphasized on this website can and do require humanities courses as part of their graduation requirements, regardless of the student’s major. This can continue or could be changed/expanded, if colleges/employers/students believe specific courses are important for the student.