To listen to many politicians, one would think talented science students are abandoning laboratories to study the humanities. In fact, it is the humanities that are losing undergraduate majors, and a new analysis from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences documents the trend. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in what the academy considers core humanities disciplines (English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English, linguistics, classical studies, and philosophy) declined 8.7 percent from 2012 to 2014, falling to the smallest number of degrees conferred since 2003 -- 106,869. Long-term declines in humanities majors (as a share of all undergraduates) have been well documented and are due in part to trends that even humanities scholars applaud, such as the opening up of science and technology fields to women. But these data are from recent years.

March 14, 2016 ・ From Inside Higher Ed