Waning Humanities majors: recent data indicate a downward trend. From the report:

New data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) show that the number of students working toward a bachelor’s degree in the humanities continued to drop into the fall of 2025. In most humanities disciplines, majors were down by more than 22% since 2015, with the decline accelerating at the beginning of the COVID pandemic….

The data reveal that the number of students working toward a bachelor’s degree in the humanities (as their first major) declined each year from fall 2015 to fall 2025, dropping from 556,369 to 398,589—an overall decline of 28% (Figure 1).1 The “general liberal arts” category experienced an even steeper decline, with enrollments dropping 32%, from 681,940 majors to 465,550. These declines are far more dramatic than those seen in other fields, with the fine and performing arts down just 1%, education 7%, and fields in the “Other” category (mostly professional and vocational subjects) down 9%. Every other field experienced at least a modest increase in majors. The most substantial increase, 32%, was in the number of students working toward an engineering degree (including computer science students), which rose from 926,880 to 1,223,577 over the time period.

Perhaps most worrisome for the field, the decline of enrolled humanities majors picked up speed during the COVID pandemic…. From 2020 to 2025, the humanities, along with the general liberal arts, experienced a decline of 17% in enrolled majors. In contrast, the numbers of enrolled majors in business, engineering, natural sciences, and health and medical sciences programs post-pandemic reached the highest levels recorded during the eleven years examined here….

The reasons for the recent acceleration in the decline of students majoring in the humanities are not entirely clear, though additional research conducted by the Humanities Indicators suggests that concerns about employability, the effects of high-stakes standardized testing in humanities subjects, and decreasing interest among young people in teaching as a career are contributing to the trend. What is clear, however, is that the decline is dramatic.