Goldberg: Where have all the English majors gone?

It’s not exactly news that the humanities are in decline and college students are turning toward skills-based and career-focused fields of study. In fact, 2021 was the ninth straight year, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, that the number of students graduating with a major in the humanities has fallen. According to federal data, the number of English majors dropped by a third from 2011 to 2021, and students majoring in religion, area studies and history fell even more. Academic fields such as anthropology, sociology and philosophy are also shrinking. But nursing, criminology and public administration keep growing. The number of computer science and engineering majors has exploded.