A Temporal Analysis of Humanities Representation in Higher Education Course Catalogs

The ”death of the humanities” has been a subject of much discussion, with some lamenting the death of these subjects so important to our experience as humans, and some celebrating the greater focus on the sciences and “more important” fields. But, what are the actual trends in the prevalence of the humanities: are they even really in decline? In this study, we analyzed course catalogs for 25 American institutions between academic years 2003-04 and 2021-22, along with statistics on enrollment demographics and academic library spending from the National Center for Education Statistics as part of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), with the goal of examining the trends in the humanities over time as well as the relationships between the prevalence of the humanities, student demographics, and library spending. Our findings suggest that the humanities are not in decline and that the difference between academic library spending on one-time purchases and subscriptions can be a good predictor of the prevalence of the humanities. Our results also suggest that institutions with more students of Asian or Pacific Islander descent and non-United States resident students are more likely to have a greater focus on the humanities. In contrast, institutions with greater enrollment of American Indian or Native Alaskan, white, black, and Hispanic students are more likely to have less focus on the humanities. These results point to possible preferences of students of different demographics. We hope these insights can inform discussions on popular views of humanities subjects in higher education.