Bachelor’s Degrees in the Humanities
- The 202,665 humanities degrees conferred in 2018 was 2% below the previous year and 14.1% below the recent high-water mark of 235,969 degrees in 2012 (Indicator II-03a). Despite the recent declines, the number of humanities degrees awarded in 2018 still remained well above the number conferred each year before 2004.
- Data on the entire range of humanities disciplines is available only back to 1987, but an extended historical perspective is available for several of the largest disciplines (classical studies, English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English, linguistics, and philosophy), which have been labeled “Historical Categories” on the graph. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in these disciplines has been falling more quickly than for the field as a whole—with a decline of 27% from 2012 to 2018. The 86,195 degrees awarded in these disciplines in 2018 constituted just 42.5% of the degrees awarded in the humanities field that year, the smallest share on record. (See “Disciplinary Distribution of Bachelor’s Degrees in the Humanities” for an analysis of how each humanities discipline’s share of degrees awarded in the field has changed over time.)
- The disciplinary categories used by the Department of Education before 1987 fail to capture degrees in certain older disciplines (such as communication and the humanistic study of religion and the arts) and also do not record the rise of several new disciplines in the field (such as area and gender studies). Nevertheless, the historical categories highlight the substantial waves in the number of humanities bachelor’s degrees awarded since the end of the Second World War. From the mid-1950s, the number of bachelor’s degrees in the historical categories rose steadily to a peak of 136,213 degrees conferred in 1971. But that number fell sharply throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, so that by 1984, the disciplines represented by the historical categories were awarding less than half the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the early 1970s. The number of degree conferrals then rose substantially. After plateauing somewhat in the mid-1990s, the number rose in 2012 to the highest level since the 1971 zenith, before falling again through 2018.
- After 10 consecutive years of declines, the share of new bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities shrank again in 2018 (Indicator II-03b). At 10.2%, the humanities’ share was the smallest it has been since a complete accounting of humanities degree completions became possible in 1987.
- The share of degrees conferred by disciplines among the historical categories contracted in 2018 to 4.4% of all bachelor’s degree completions—the smallest share in records extending back to 1949. As recently as the early-1990s, the share for the historical categories approached 9.0%. These disciplines’ share was largest, reaching 17.2%, in 1967. The humanities then experienced a substantial decline in their share of all bachelor’s degrees over the course of the 1970s and early 1980s. Although the number of humanities degree completions increased thereafter, so did the total number of bachelor’s degrees awarded, which kept the historical categories’ share well below the mid-1960s high.
- In 2018, the share of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities (10.2%) was less than a third the size of the 36.7% share for the sciences (health/medical, natural, and behavioral/social sciences combined; Indicator II-03c). The humanities’ share was also approximately half the size of that for the business/management field, which awarded almost 20% of all bachelor’s degrees.
- The fields with larger shares of bachelor’s degrees in 2018 than a decade earlier were engineering, the health/medical sciences, and the natural sciences. While all the other fields experienced some loss in the share of degrees conferred, education and the humanities experienced the most substantial declines from 2008 to 2018 (around a third).
- Within the humanities, almost every discipline experienced a decline in the number of degrees awarded from 2012, the recent high point for the field, to 2018 (Indicator II-03d). The largest proportional declines occurred in archeology, area studies, classical studies, and history (down more than 30%), but degrees in English, languages and literatures other than English, and religion also fell by 25% or more. (Comparisons among disciplines should be made with caution, given the considerable range in the baseline numbers of degrees awarded.)
- The only large humanities discipline (as measured by number of degrees completed) to experience an increase in the number of degrees from 2012 to 2018 was communication, which increased 10% (even after excluding professional degrees in the discipline). The humanistic side of communication surpassed English in the conferral of bachelor’s degrees for the first time in 2014, and by 2018 approximately 14,000 more degrees (35%) were being awarded in communication than English.
- The number of degrees in three other humanities disciplines increased from 2012 to 2018. Linguistics grew by 125 degrees (a 6% increase), while the number of degrees in cultural, ethnic, and gender studies increased by 185 (4%). The number of bachelor’s degrees in folklore was also higher, but 2012 was the first year in which degrees were tabulated for the discipline, so the growth (from 5 to 10 bachelor’s degrees) may just reflect improved reporting by colleges and universities.
* Degree completion counts could not be obtained for 1979 and 1983. The degree counts depicted do not include “second majors.” For data on such degrees, see “Humanities Bachelor’s Degrees as a Second Major.”
** The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1949. These disciplines include English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English (including linguistics and classical studies), and philosophy. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the differences between the two trend lines.
Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System, and Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
All data since 1987 have been tabulated using the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). For an explanation of the advantages of using the CIP to tally humanities degree completions, see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.
For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute the academic humanities as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.
* Degree completion counts could not be obtained for 1979 and 1983. The degree counts depicted do not include “second majors.” For data on such degrees, see “Humanities Bachelor’s Degrees as a Second Major.”
** The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1949. These disciplines include English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English (including linguistics and classical studies), and philosophy. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the differences between the two trend lines.
Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System, and Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
All data since 1987 have been tabulated using the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). For an explanation of the advantages of using the CIP to tally humanities degree completions, see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.
For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute the academic humanities as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute each of the academic fields as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
For an inventory of the specific degree programs that compose each of the humanities disciplines as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.