Advanced Degrees in the Humanities
- The humanities field conferred 27,936 master’s degrees in 2018. This marked the sixth consecutive year of decline and a 14% reduction from the number awarded in 2012, the recent high point (Indicator II-20a). Even with the recent declines, however, the number of master’s degrees conferred in 2018 was still higher than in every year from 1987 (the first year for which data of this kind are available) to 2005.
- From a low of 3,110 degrees in 1988, the number of humanities doctoral degrees awarded annually rose almost without interruption to 4,994 in 2000, declined somewhat in the early to mid-2000s, and then in 2008 began climbing again (Indicator II-20b). By 2015 the number of doctorate completions reached a zenith of 5,876. Humanities programs awarded 5,637 doctoral degrees in 2018, a 4% decline from 2015’s record high.
- Data on the entire range of humanities disciplines are available only back to 1987, but an extended historical perspective is available for certain 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 graphs. For this subset of the field, the greatest postwar increase in the number of graduate-level degrees awarded occurred from 1955 to the early 1970s, with a surge of more than 400% over that time span at both the master’s and the doctoral levels. The number of master’s degrees peaked at 21,542 in 1971, while the number of doctorates peaked at 4,708 in 1973. The number of advanced degrees conferred in these humanities disciplines then tumbled. By the mid-to-late 1980s, humanities programs were awarding fewer than half as many postbaccalaureate degrees.
- The decline in advanced humanities degrees in the “historical categories” reversed in the late 1980s. By 1994 the number of master’s degrees had risen to 69% of the 1971 peak. Following a decline starting in the late 1990s, master’s degree completions picked up again in 2002 and increased almost every year until 2012 (to 19,052) but then fell over the next six years to 15,976 master’s degrees (84% of the peak number) in 2018.
- The trend in doctorate completions generally followed the same trajectory as master’s degrees (albeit with a slight lag in time). Humanities doctorates in the “historical categories” reached the height of their recovery in 1998, when the number reached 83% of the 1973 peak. But several years of marked declines over the next decade brought the number to just under 3,500 by 2007. By 2012, however, the number was back above 4,000 (for the first time since 1976). The number hovered near this level through 2016, and then dropped back below 4,000 in 2017 and 2018.
- Almost every humanities discipline tracked in these indicators experienced an increase in the number of master’s and doctoral degrees completed annually from 2000 to 2012 (Indicator II-20c and Indicator II-20d). However, the trends for the two degree levels diverged from 2012 to 2018. Most of the humanities disciplines experienced a decline in completions at the master’s degree level, with the number falling by 14% or more. Even the humanities-oriented areas of the communication discipline, which experienced uninterrupted growth in baccalaureate degrees from the mid-1990s through 2017, saw a 3% decrease in master’s degrees from 2012 to 2018. The only notable exceptions among disciplines granting a large enough number of degrees to make such calculations meaningful were cultural/ethnic/gender studies (where degrees rose 5%) and the study of the arts (up 16%).
- While the number of master’s degrees fell in most disciplines from 2012 to 2018, the same disciplines experienced a more modest decline in doctoral degrees (e.g., English and history, with drops of 10% and 6%–compared to decreases of 17% and 20% in master’s degrees) or an increase (e.g., communication, up 19%; and area studies, languages and literatures other than English, linguistics, and religion—up between 1% and 5%). Notable among the increases—and mirroring developments at the master’s degree level—was the 25% growth (from 108 degrees to 135) in the number of culture/ethnic/gender studies PhDs awarded.
* The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1948. 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 for years 1987 and later 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.
See also the Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees.
* The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1948. 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 for years 1987 and later 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.
See also the Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
See the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.
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.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
See the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.
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.
