My title may be more than a little sarcastic. But this article truly spent around 1000 words announcing the results of a study by the American Academy of Arts & Science that concluded that the amount of humanities degrees are declining, while the number of science degrees are steadily growing.
Now, while it is nice to have studies that pretty much confirm common knowledge (or what I thought was common knowledge, as I’ll explain), I was shocked to receive the impression that politicians and other figures have been speaking as if the humanities were on the rise. In my opinion, it takes a day in a non-specialized college to realize that the majority of students are flocking towards science majors (and other science-related majors, such as nursing and engineering) in search of the supposed overflow of career opportunities (or rather you’re just ‘more likely’ to get a job in the science/science-related fields, rather than ‘guaranteed’). Seems like the author of the article was looking for a snazzy introduction to the information, rather than a more just one.
This article frames the study’s information in a way that gives the reader the impression that the sciences are simply becoming ‘more interesting’ to people, only dedicating one sentence to career safety/monetary gains; apparently, students would rather study cell reproduction than Marie de France. The author of the article also posits (in a whopping two sentences) that maybe the recent sweep of cuts in college’s humanities departments may have something to do with this decline in interest; I think this ‘reason’ also connects to the promotion of science/related fields because of financial reasons and job needs. Promoting science and cutting humanities follows the desire to draw students to the supposedly booming science/related job markets.
This blog post has turned into more of a critique of the article, rather than actual commenting on the issue presented. But I do wish the author of the article had spent less time attempting to sensationalize the findings of the Academy of Arts & Sciences, and more time exploring the real “reasons for recent declines” and the interesting gains of the humanities at community colleges.
I had just read the article and I agree one hundred percent. All these numbers and graphs are great, they have thoroughly convinced me that humanties majors are declining while sceince majors are rising. And I don’t think we should gloss over this too quickly. Like you said, there are so many politicians speaking up saying “We need more welders and less philosophers” (My favorite one by the way). So we are essentially forced to ask why is there this popular notion that everyone is a Pyschology major or an English major while the numbers say otherwise?
And after reading the article I do believe that the promotion of science and technology as a society is what’s causing this drift. The article, not too surprisingly, only mentioned one sentence on how there are some proponents for this argument. Like you, I really wished they would have disscussed this a little more because I find myself in that same school of thought! Nonetheless, I think it comes down to what was said since day one; it’s all about the money. If the colleges see that our society is rewarding those (monetarily) for choosing a certain field of study, then of course the colleges will want to promote that same field. The more money their students get after college, the more money they will get.
I can only imagine a school the specializes in Chemistry will have a lot more money in the furture than one that specializes in Anthropology. Strictly from the perspective of the amount of money their students will earn in the future. So I take it we would agree that the defunding is most certainly not a result of a decline of interest. So I don’t think the article was too accurate with that one. It just seems to obvious that these schools defund these majors not of their concern for student interest, but instead, for all the student interest they can make! (See what I did there? It’s a pun!)
Either way, interesting post! And a pretty good article.
I agree the the sciences are growing, mostly in the tech areas and biology, but the article leaves out the growth in business and finance which are also fast-growing. But this is related to our earlier discussion about what people see as the purpose of higher education — and clearly the expectation is strong among many that jobs are one benchmark of this. It’s not irrefutable — but it needs refuting and often is just assumed without proof that science leads to better job prospects in terms of numbers for new BA/BS degree holders — though the starting salary data are clear.