With 117 economics “first majors” in 2023 — the most among NESCAC LACs — has Williams become a case example of liberal arts colleges at risk of becoming academically unbalanced?
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Williams&s=all&id=168342#programs
Will Williams College’s economics department have enough teaching capacity if even more students choose economics as a major?
Class Schedule – Registrar's Office indicates that it offered 120 seats in ECON 251 (Price and Allocation Theory, which is intermediate microeconomics) during the 2023-2024 academic year, which is barely enough to handle a yearly cohort of 117 economics majors, leaving little space for non-majors to take that course if they are interested in it.
So obviously Williams does not have an undergrad business program or finance major, but it is one of the top feeders into business and finance positions. Just as an example, in this famous study of IB feeder schools, Williams was 12th per capita, just after Chicago at 11th:
I note only a small fraction of Williams students go into IB specifically, but measures like this can be seen as a proxy for graduating student interest in highly selective business and finance positions.
And Chicago is probably a good point of comparison. At Williams, 117 graduating primary majors in Econ is about 20.5% of all graduating primary majors. Chicago similarly has no undergrad business, but had 522 graduating primary majors in Economics, 30.9% of their total. So Williams was not quite at that level of concentration.
OK, then Amherst was #13 on that IB list, but only 56 in Economics, which is about 12.1%. So Williams is pretty much right between Chicago and Amherst. So this is not explaining everything.
OK, then somewhat different lens, PhDs. Per this five-year study:
Chicago had 70 Econ PhDs, Williams 20, Amherst 7. If you divide that by 5 (to get the annual average), then divide by the numbers above (note this is from different year ranges so this is a little suspect), you get 2.7% for Chicago, 3.4% for Williams, 2.5% for Amherst. Small on its own again, but my point is Williams is probably not just getting a lot of Business/Finance people majoring in Econ, but also more than its fair share of people who are interested in it academically.
But is this “too many”? I guess that is up to the individual, but personally I would not be particularly concerned at that level. Indeed, for an academicky sort, I would see this as significantly less of a concern than, say, LACs which have popular undergrad Business programs.
So, like, Richmond only had 47 (5.8%) in Econ, but had 361 graduating primary Business majors (44.9%). That’s obviously over half combined.
Bucknell was 98 in its Econ majors (11.3%), and then 140 (16.1%) in Business.
Bucknell also had 172 in Engineering (19.8%), and 47.3% in those three combined (Business, Econ, and Engineering). So if you are concerned about space left for other traditional liberal arts and sciences, I would also be more concerned about Bucknell than Williams.
But in the end it is obviously up to the individual, which is rather the point of LACs, to be very individualized.
It’s not surprising that economics is a popular major- it was my minor and dh’s major, it’s a good combination of not too much writing and not too much math but some of each and also gives you a really good lens to look at the world. I also don’t think it’s only for students heading to business- it would be a great place to start for law school, any kind of government job and more. I think history/English are losing ground pretty much everywhere because students today don’t want to do (and often aren’t prepared for) so much writing (and reading).
Just to clarify, I agree–it has long been recognized as one of the top few “general” degrees that is potentially relevant to a long list of careers.
That said, I do think when colleges don’t have undergrad business or finance majors, that naturally tends to lead to more Econ majors. But I don’t think that means all Econ majors have such intentions.
I looked up the faculty for Econ…nearly 40 professors.
Anthro/Soc is one department - and less than 20 professors.
Students are likely chosen/steered this way based on the school offerings, and as students see what the students of the past studied.
So my guess this is purposely engineered.
I think all schools have “unbalanced” majors vs. another.
So I guess the word unbalanced is up to interpretation.
About 20% of Williams students major in Econ. Sure its a popular major, and has been. Don’t see it as lopsided at all. JMO
In terms of academic atmosphere, the topic concerns both who’s there — lots of economics majors — and who’s largely missing, such as classics (3 graduates), philosophy (4) and anthropology (4) majors. Along these lines, it seems that unless a student specifically sought out, say, a classics major, she would be unlikely to know one. Students seeking intellectual breadth in their academic and casual encounters may therefore be disappointed when a particular major predominates at a given school. Nonetheless, based on the comments on this thread, it doesn’t appear that there’s a consensus that this is the case at Williams.
As interesting counterexamples to many Northeastern LACs, Reed graduated just 16 economics majors in the most recent year, and Kenyon graduated more majors in English literature (76) than in economics (59). In the Northeast, Vassar graduated fewer economics majors (48) than any NESCAC LAC.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Reed+college&s=all&id=209922#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Kenyon&s=all&id=203535#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Vassar&s=all&id=197133#programs
My D22 actually used number of economics majors to rule out schools (partially at my suggestion after reading Excellent Sheep but she completely agreed). She wanted variety and interesting mixes as well as being arts /literature oriented and wanting others interested in those things. Economics struck us both as a good major for the risk-averse and for those interested in finance/law/consulting/business - none of which is my D. Obviously she wouldn’t generalize to any actual human being she met at school - I’m pretty sure she knows some economics majors and even likes them - but she didn’t want that to be the prevailing ethos of the school she attended.
To the extent that it pertains to this topic, this analysis of economics departments at liberal arts colleges may be of interest: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html.
Part of what a school may be after is this too - they want their product to be sought after. And wealthy seeking wealth want the high echelon opportunities.
Here’s a career report from both. While Williams average is $67K (most recent report I can find), if you look in the bottom left, it breaks out income by industry type.
I can’t find a formal report from Kenyon but they list first jobs by majors (2nd link) but I would surmise that perhaps they are more widespread but maybe not as “up market” - not sure if that’s the right word - but as high $$ as Williams. Can’t tell but just an assumption from looking at the jobs.
Back to your original point - is it too imbalanced? Perhaps it’s done with reason - i.e. wanting to be seen as that truly elite school that Williams is. And people typically tie money/high earning roles to school status, etc. And catering to kids who desire and end up in those high end roles keeps the Williams brand at the premium level it is.
Liberal arts colleges are obviously unbalanced because liberal arts majors make up only a minority of total BA/BS degrees in recent years.
I definitely think different SLACs are trying to achieve the different mixes of students. And I see that differentiation as a positive.
Doesnt seem this is an issue, link below shows that two sections of this class had open seats this spring.
https://catalog.williams.edu/econ/detail/?strm=&cn=251&crsid=010857&req_year=0
S24
I think if you collect the various individual departments into their broadly aligned umbrella groups (social science, STEM, and humanities), it all works out.
The number isn’t particularly important. Far more relevant to whether the major distribution is well balanced is the percentage. Using IPEDS, the selective colleges with the largest portion econ majors were as follows. Williams isn’t the highest among selective LACs, but it is among the highest.
Selective Colleges with Highest % Econ Majors
- Chicago – 31% (40% social sciences)
- CMC – 29% (44% social sciences)
- Trinity – 20% (43% social sciences)
- Williams – 18% (29% social sciences)
- Lafayette – 17% (32% social sciences)
- Hamilton – 16% (32% social sciences)
- Colgate – 16% (37% social sciences)
- Swarthmore – 16% (24% social sciences)
- Holy Cross – 15% (36% social sciences)
- Navy – 15% (26% social sciences)
- Middlebury – 15% (32% social sciences)
- Amherst – 15% (23% social sciences)
Whether 18% of the class being econ majors and 29% being social science is unbalanced is a matter of opinion. It can be indicative of a large portion of the class pursuing finance and to a less extent consulting and can be correlated with such companies attending career fairs and other events on campus. Would this type of balance be a problem for you, if you were a Williams student?
Based on current information, this figure appears to be 20.5%.
I expect we are looking at different years. Given the relatively small class size, there can be significant variation from one year to the next.
Not that I would demand this, but I think ideally we would be looking at something like four-year totals and average percentages. And you might want to include, or separately report, secondary majors as well. That would probably give you a more stable idea of the number and percentage of co-majors in your department at a given time.
I don’t know if this is particularly important for larger majors for Econ, but it might make a little more of a difference for smaller majors.
