An English major is a humanities degree option with plenty of opportunities for students to explore different styles of expression. An undergraduate background in English is helpful for graduate and professional programs in journalism, law, and business, just to name a few.
But many universities have seen a steady decline in English majors that have continued post-pandemic. The number of students majoring in English (and other humanities majors) decreased by a third from 2011 to 2021.
Many private colleges have gone out of business over the last 10 years, partly because of reduced demand for a traditional liberal arts education. At other institutions, departments have been cut back, merged, or closed.
Several higher education institutions that opted to stop offering English degrees include those that have promoted a liberal arts education as the cornerstone of their curriculums, such as Columbia, Brown, and Stanford. The tenets of classical education — philosophy, rhetoric, and literature — have lost their luster as many students seek admittance to pre-professional research universities.
The Decline of Humanities and English Majors
Engineering and computer science are in high demand due to the rapid advancement of technology and the increasing reliance on computer systems and software, likely reinforcing students’ unwillingness to explore the humanities, especially among low-income and first-generation students.
A US Department of Labor blog noted that employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 14.6% from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations (5.3%).
Students with the financial latitude to explore various interests often choose majors that will advance their career trajectories. Some schools, including Marymount University, are eliminating English major programs.
Marymount reached its decision in 2023 after a 20-0 vote in which its trustees agreed that a shift from the humanities would increase its enrollment revenue and fulfill its responsibilities to students to prepare them for a competitive job market.
From 2012 to 2018, there was a 14.1% drop in humanities degrees. In 2020, less than one in 10 college graduates obtained humanities degrees. And according to The New Yorker, English majors fell from 10% to 5% of graduates between 2002 and 2020, while the ranks of computer-science majors strengthened.
Therefore, universities are challenged to decide whether to curtail humanities courses, restructure them, or remove them altogether.
“These humanities fields are down to unprecedented levels,” Rob Townsend, director of humanities, arts, and culture programs at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, said in a 2021 Hechinger Report press release. “It’s worrisome.”
Columbia University remains one of the few institutions that prioritize a heavy liberal arts education, even for its engineering school (School of Engineering and Applied Science), though to a lesser degree than its counterpart, Columbia College.
Both colleges mandate a comprehensive education embodied in their “core curriculum” that includes courses on art, canonical literature, philosophy, and music — a selling point for prospective students.
Why Are English & Humanities Majors Important?
Despite the recent importance of English majors with the rise of Chat GPT and other writing tools, English also provides a narrative space in which issues from different disciplines start to reflect one's actual lived experience in some way, whether in a realist sense or something a bit more abstract.
The major provides students a way to synthesize these interests and new communicative and critical tools, try them out, and see how they work in one's own life and the social area of the classroom.
Yale University stated that one reason to major in English is that it provides many prized skills that will continue to facilitate our daily engagements, including the ability to read analytically and write articulately.
“That is where the English major powers come in,” argues Lani Rosales of The American Genius, ”copywriters are paid well because they can not only write skillfully, but because they can look at what you’ve written or what a bot has written, and immediately know if it is good or not. Bots still can’t do that."
Reading stories from diverse perspectives can help us understand the varied voices and experiences that constitute our community and our world. English majors become more holistic people, versed in many facets of knowledge, capable of making sense of them in conversation, and able to best express these insights to the world.
The humanities’ emphasis on discourse and analysis allows students to think critically and quickly while interfacing with peers who may have different opinions in real-time. The humanities aspect of the English majors allows students to learn how to navigate disagreement diplomatically and promotes analytical and interpersonal skills that transcend the university classroom and into the workplace.
If higher education institutions continue to dismantle their humanities programs, students will be discouraged from engaging with them. But the need for these skills – critical and analytical thinking and the ability to effectively inform and persuade – isn’t going anywhere.
At Student Select AI, we believe AI technology should support humans, not replace them. Our products are designed to empower admissions professionals to gain a holistic view of each applicant to reduce time-to-admission, increase acceptance among underrepresented groups, and ultimately make better admissions decisions.
