Bachelor’s Degrees in the Humanities
- In 2025, the nation’s colleges and universities awarded 164,847 bachelor’s degrees in the humanities—the smallest number of degrees awarded since 1991 and 30.4% below the recent high-water mark in 2012 (Indicator II-03a). That decline includes a particularly sharp drop of 12.7% from 2021 to 2023, followed by a more modest drop of 2.1% from 2023 to 2024, and a further decline of just 0.4% from 2024 to 2025—the smallest year-on-year decline since 2012.
- The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the “historical categories” (disciplines with data going back to 1949) has been falling more quickly than for the field as a whole—with a decline of 42% from 2012 to 2025. The 68,778 degrees awarded in these disciplines in 2025 was both the smallest number since 1987 and smaller than the number awarded in every year from 1964 to 1978. (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 failed to capture degrees awarded in certain older humanities disciplines (e.g., communication and the humanistic study of religion and the arts) and did not include newer disciplines in the field (e.g., area and gender studies). As a result, only the trend for the historical categories can highlight the substantial ups and downs in the number of humanities bachelor’s degrees awarded from 1949 to 2025. 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 humanities disciplines in the historical categories were awarding less than half the number of bachelor’s degrees they had conferred in the early 1970s. The number of degree conferrals then rose substantially. After plateauing in the mid-1990s, the numbers started to rise again, peaking in 2009 at 87.6% of the 1971 zenith. The annual number of new degrees then declined almost every subsequent year through 2025.
- Even prior to the recent declines, the number of humanities bachelor’s degrees awarded had been growing more slowly than the total number of new bachelor’s degrees awarded across all fields. As a result, the share of new bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities has been shrinking since 2005 (when the field accounted for almost 15% of bachelor’s degree conferrals; Indicator II-03b). By 2025, the humanities accounted for just 8.1% of the bachelor’s degrees awarded—the smallest share since a more comprehensive accounting of humanities degree completions became possible in 1987.
- The share of bachelor’s degrees conferred by disciplines among the historical categories contracted to 3.4% of all degrees conferred in 2025—the smallest share in records extending back to 1949, and just under one-fifth of the share at their peak in 1967 (when they constituted 17.2% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded).
- Three fields experienced substantial growth in their shares of all bachelor’s degrees from 2012 to 2025: engineering (growing from 7.3% to 13.2%; Indicator II-03c), health/medical sciences (climbing from 9.2% of all degrees awarded in 2012 to 12.5%), and the natural sciences (rising from 9.2% to 11.1%). Notably, the share awarded to students in the health and medical sciences has now declined for three consecutive years after peaking at 13.2% in 2022, while the share for the natural sciences is down slightly from a peak of 11.4% in 2023. All other fields experienced some loss in their share of bachelor’s degrees conferred, but the humanities had the most substantial decline from 2012 to 2025, falling by almost 40%, from 13.1% to 8.1%.
- Within the humanities, almost every discipline awarded fewer degrees in 2025 than 13 years earlier (Indicator II-03d). The largest proportional drops in degrees awarded occurred in religious studies (down 56.3%), area studies (53.2%), languages and literatures other than English (50.8%), English (43.8%), history (40.6%), classical studies (39.4%), and comparative literature (31%). Only three disciplines showed increases—folklore (where the small number of degrees awarded makes the numbers highly volatile), the study of the arts (with a modest 2.1% increase since 2012), and interdisciplinary humanities disciplines (where the increase was largely due to the addition of a substantial number of new programs, such as digital humanities, in the Department of Education’s 2020 revision of its Classification of Instructional Programs).
* 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 Education 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 Education 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 Education 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 Education 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.
