Fewer and Fewer Students Earn Degrees in the Humanities

20 years ago, nearly 15% of the undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States were in the humanities. As of 2025, that percentage is down to 8.1%. These figures are from a recent report by Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Here are the numbers: In 2025, the nation’s colleges and universities awarded 164,847 bachelor’s degrees in the humanities—the smallest number of degrees awarded since 1991 and 30.4% below the recent high-water mark in 2012… That decline includes a particularly sharp drop of 12.7% from 2021 to 2023, followed by a more modest drop of 2.1% from 2023 to 2024, and a further decline of just 0.4% from 2024 to 2025—the smallest year-on-year decline since 2012. And most disciplines within the humanities have shown a decline: Within the humanities, almost every discipline awarded fewer degrees in 2025 than 13 years earlier… The largest proportional drops in degrees awarded occurred in religious studies (down 56.3%), area…