Tuesday turned out to be a tough day for reading in ways that might not seem connected at first. In this week’s issue, I explore how two seemingly unrelated reports about reading scores and humanities majors may be related. We then close with three Sparks about online education, money problems, and Workforce Pell.  

Can I Tell You a Story? 

From Report: Humanities Majors Disappearing | Inside Higher Ed 

According to a new report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the number of humanities bachelor’s degree awarded last year was the lowest since 1991.  

Our Thoughts  

Throughout my career, I’ve learned on multiple occasions that data doesn’t sway people. It’s the story you tell through the data, not the data itself, that helps people understand your point. Earlier in the week, when I read the report about the decline in humanities majors, I thought it was interesting and perhaps a bit sad, but I didn’t plan to feature it in this week’s post. Then I read a blog post by Matt Reed, and the end stuck with me. In short, an art class put together a September 11 art installation on his campus. During the dedication ceremony, he wrote: “In this context, I didn’t hear any of the usual ‘what are you going to do with that’ comments around art. Instead, I heard appreciation for the perspective that art offered...” And while this report is about the humanities and not necessarily the arts, I started to think about the importance of humanistic study and what could be lost as interest in those majors declines.  

Humanities are, well, the study of humanity—the stuff that makes us uniquely human. A large part of that study is stories about human life, and this extends well beyond the study of literature to artistic expression, religion, history, and even languages. That’s the exact thing that was happening at Reed’s dedication ceremony. People saw the return on investment of art education through the expression and reflection of something terrible that happened. It made sense to them and they connected through it.  

Perhaps it’s not all doom and gloom though as the data only reports the primary major of graduates and humanities are often second majors for students. In 2022, research estimated that humanities may account for around 21 percent of second majors awarded (against 9 percent of first majors), and since only a little more than half of institutions reported second majors, the number could actually be higher. But, with the increased focus of career outcomes from higher education, students may be turning away from the indirect career paths offered by humanities degrees at the exact moment AI is making the skills developed by those majors more valuable than ever.  

However, I also understand why students may be selecting majors other than humanities. This week, there was a report about the drop in reading scores on PISA, which reached a 25 year low in the U.S. While it will take some time to unpack these results, my current hypothesis is this is a result of the shift to test based instruction. Teachers report moving from reading whole books to short excerpts because that’s what their students are tested on. When we’ve trained a generation of students not to read books in an academic setting, many may find it challenging to major in a subject that requires close and careful reading of numerous books, articles, manuscripts, etc. 

So where does this leave us? Will humanities majors only be taught at institutions large enough to support it? I hope not, but I also don’t think so. Maybe I’m overly hopeful about the underreporting of second majors, but I have to wonder if the pressures of AI and the pushback we’re starting to see won’t manifest itself in more students who have an interest in studying subjects that are proof of our humanity. Yes, I still believe there will be pressure to major in something that results in a direct career path, and I don't expect that to ease. To paraphrase the ending of Reed’s blog, we are in the hope business after all.  

Sparks 

• Post-Pandemic, Online Ed Has ‘Staying Power’ (Inside Higher Ed) - Newly released enrollment data shows lasting increases in online learning as compared to pre-pandemic times. Everyone says students want more online courses, but do they?
• More than half of colleges show signs of money problems. Students will suffer the consequences. (The Hechinger Report) - The Hechinger Report offers a new tool that allows you to gain insight into an institution’s financial position. While I haven’t fully explored the tool in depth, I’m a big fan of transparency.
• Workforce Pell (Open Campus) - A six-part briefing to better explain Workforce Pell and what it means for your institution. I don’t typically feature upcoming newsletters, but this one should be interesting.