Rolling humanities: new data show how students choose a humanities major during their college years, if not at the outset. From the study:

In recent years, the Humanities Indicators staff has received numerous questions about whether college students who start a humanities degree are more or less likely to finish it than those who start other majors, and how the movement into and out of humanities majors compares to those of other fields of study. To answer these questions, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences commissioned an analysis by National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), the source of the most comprehensive data available on the pathways taken by students through higher education. For this analysis, NSC examined entering students’ choice of major in fall 2017—upon the start of a program of studies toward a bachelor’s degree—and then their status as of June 2024…. While the study focuses on only one group of students, it offers a useful starting point for further consideration of the humanities major, with three suggestive findings:

  1. Students who start their studies in a humanities discipline are slightly more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree within seven years than college students generally (and even more likely to do so if they completed an associate’s degree before starting at a four-year institution).
  2. Among students who completed a degree in a humanities discipline, more than half had started their studies in another major—either a nonhumanities field or a general liberal arts major.
  3. Among students who completed a degree with a second major, the share who had humanities as a second major was twice the size of the share who graduated with a primary major in the humanities. This was primarily due to a disproportionately large share of humanities majors completing a second major in another humanities discipline.

The study also examined the recent trend in enrolled humanities majors and found a steady decline from fall 2017 to 2023, which indicates that the decline in students earning humanities degrees is likely to continue for at least a few more years….

According to the National Clearinghouse, almost two million students started working toward a bachelor’s degree in fall 2017; of that number, 91,751 (4.6%) selected a primary major in one of the humanities disciplines. We know from Department of Education data that an average of around 7.5% of the bachelor’s degrees awarded from 2017 to 2022 were in the humanities. The difference between matriculations and degrees is explained by the humanities gaining more majors from other fields than it lost to either attrition or its own students switching to another major….

If one reverses the perspective and looks at where the students who completed a degree in each of the fields originated, the extent of the movement between fields becomes more apparent. Just 44.7% of the students completing degrees in the humanities had started their studies with a major in one of the disciplines, as more than half of the graduates started in another subject area—the lowest share of any field.

Comparing Figure 3 and Figure 5 highlights not only the success of the humanities in retaining students who started in the field but also its ability to attract students from other fields. In addition to the sizable percentage of humanities graduates who started out with general liberal arts majors, 5% migrated from each of the following fields: social and behavioral sciences, business and management, the natural sciences, and “Other.” If one excludes the general liberal arts, the humanities drew the largest share of its graduates from other fields, though the behavioral/social sciences were a close second.

For other studies posted from Humanities Indicators, see here.

H/t Rob Townsend