Sunday, November 03, 2013

Lit hum

You may have heard that interest in the humanities is waning among undergraduates - measured, at least, in terms of their chosen majors. The situation isn't quite so simple. Although the percentage of graduates majoring in humanities has fallen (though the percentage has been stable for the last 30 years) the number of humanities majors recorded by the National Center of Education Statistics has actually been rising. Compared to other liberal arts majors we're even doing pretty well. The big story is really the growth in non-liberal arts majors, which signals a change in college's role in American society. From a certain point of view, what's remarkable is that the humanities continue to hold up!