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Humanities degrees hit their lowest numbers in decades
Last year, colleges awarded fewer bachelor’s degrees in the humanities than any time since 1991, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found.
Published Sept. 8, 2026
Ben Unglesbee
Senior Reporter
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Students graduating with humanities bachelor’s degrees have hit their lowest numbers in decades — with further declines potentially on the horizon, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences .
U.S. colleges awarded 164,847 undergraduate humanities degrees in 2025. That’s the smallest number since 1991 and nearly a third below 2012 levels, the most recent peak, according to the academy.
Humanities degrees tumble to lowest levels in decades
The humanities degrees conferred annually since 1987
The academy analyzed U.S. Department of Education data on humanities degrees that dates back to 1987. However, for a subset of humanities fields — including history, English and philosophy — data goes back to 1949. For that smaller pool, humanities degrees hit their lowest levels on record, representing just 3.4% of all degrees conferred in 2025. That's compared to 17.2% in 1967 .
And since 2012, degree generation has declined in nearly every humanities field. Religious studies degrees fell the most, plummeting 56.3% in 13 years. Degrees in world languages and literature fell 50.8%, English degrees by 43.8% and history degrees by 40.6%. The data did not include second majors in the count.
By the numbers
-12.7%
The “particularly sharp drop” in humanities degrees conferred between 2021 and 2023, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1.6 million
The number of students who enrolled as business majors in 2025, making it the most popular type of program, according to the academy's analysis of National Student Clearinghouse data. Next highest was engineering, with 1.2 million majors. Humanities programs garnered fewer than 400,000 majors.
8.1%
Humanities programs’ share of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2025, the smallest proportion since data collection began in 1987, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nor is there any letup in sight for the humanities downturn. As the academy noted in a second report released Tuesday, degrees conferred is a lagging indicator.
In fall 2025, some 398,589 college students majored in humanities fields , down 28% from a decade prior, according to Tuesday's analysis of National Student Clearinghouse data.
“ Perhaps most worrisome for the field, the decline of enrolled humanities majors picked up speed during the COVID pandemic ,” the academy said in its analysis, pointing to a 3.8% average annual decline in humanities majors since fall 2020 .
Meanwhile, post-pandemic majors in business, engineering, natural sciences, and health and medical sciences increased to their highest levels from 2015 to 2025, rebounding from losses during the COVID era.
The reasons for the drop-offs in the humanities aren’t fully clear, according to the academy. But its own research suggested declines are driven by “ concerns about employability, the effects of high-stakes standardized testing in humanities subjects, and decreasing interest among young people in teaching as a career .”
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