A new study is out reporting that the number of Humanities majors continue to slide.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/14/study-shows-87-percent-decline-humanities-bachelors-degrees-2-years
The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in what the academy considers core humanities disciplines (English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English, linguistics, classical studies, and philosophy) declined 8.7 percent from 2012 to 2014, falling to the smallest number of degrees conferred since 2003 -- 106,869. Long-term declines in humanities majors (as a share of all undergraduates) have been well documented and are due in part to trends that even humanities scholars applaud, such as the opening up of science and technology fields to women. But these data are from recent years.
As a percentage of all bachelor’s degrees, the core disciplines in the humanities disciplines fell in 2014 to their lowest recorded level, 6.1 percent, in all years going back to 1948, the period for which the academy has reliable numbers. As recently as the early 1990s (well after STEM fields were open to women and many preprofessional programs grew), the equivalent figure was 8 percent. The highest level ever was 17.2 percent in 1967.
Much of the decline in the humanities is traced to a collapse in the number of History degrees.
http://allenjaym.com/2015/11/big-slide-for-the-history-ba/
I don’t think anyone will be surprised to hear that, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students earning bachelor’s degrees in history went down again. The latest data covers the academic year ending in 2014, so many teachers and administrators have already noticed fewer history majors in their departments. The downward trend is in its third year, so an uptick would have been a pleasant surprise and the downturn is no surprise at all.
But the magnitude of the decline is a shock. If the numbers are right and if I’ve run them correctly, history departments graduated roughly 3,400 fewer students in AY 2013-14 than in the previous year. That’s a 9 percent decline, and it’s surprising because no year-over-year change in the last 15 years—up or down—has come close to being this large. And if we look at the number of history undergrad degrees as a percentage of all bachelors degrees, we see a slide that started in 2007 and has continued into 2014–a year in which history majors claimed only 1.73 percent of all bachelor’s degrees.
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