“What are you going to do with that?” is a question I heard often from my family as both an undergraduate and a graduate student.
Yes, I was an English major. My older siblings were going to nursing and medical school and all of my cousins were pursuing engineering, science and business degrees. So there was always an edge to that question every time it came up at family gatherings. A just-under-the-surface skepticism about the usefulness of a humanities degree as job preparation.
I know now that this question was meant kindly — and was informed by the older generation’s desire to see their children enjoy a return on investment (ROI) on a college education similar to what they themselves experienced as first- and second-generation college-goers.
College degrees changed the trajectories of their lives. They opened opportunities for economic and social mobility and moved my parents’ generation beyond the experiences of their grandparents and great-grandparents, many of whom, as first- and second-generation immigrants to this country in the nineteenth century, started their working lives as farmers or day laborers.
My aunts, uncles and parents were keenly aware that they themselves had benefited substantially from America’s grand expansion of the public higher education system post-World War II. Though their question burdened me at the time with self-doubt, among other things, they asked it out of a caring sense of concern for my future.
Decades later, I now have the privilege of serving as the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, an access-oriented public research university that serves and graduates high numbers of students who are first-generation college goers, military veterans, economically under-resourced or transfer students, or from historically underrepresented groups.
As the idea of higher education as a public good is increasingly questioned or under attack, and as public perceptions of the value of a college degree relative to its cost continue to shift, I often remind my faculty of our fundamental purpose: We are here to educate our students.
We are here to engage them in the kinds of high-impact discovery learning that public research universities can offer at scale; the kinds of experiences that can change the trajectory of their lives and the lives of their families.
“What can’t you do with a humanities degree?”
It is because of my institution’s access-oriented educational mission that I view the release of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators report, “Employment Outcomes for Humanities Majors: State Profiles,” as an important occasion.
Drawing on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the data collected and analyzed in this study should help change national narratives about both the “death” of the humanities and the low ROI on a four-year college degree.
The first national study of its kind, the report offers a state-by-state comparison of the salary ranges and unemployment rates of college graduates who majored in the humanities with those of, on the one hand, high-school and two-year college graduates and, on the other hand, college graduates in the arts, education, social sciences, business, natural sciences and engineering.
In doing so, the report tells a very different story than the one you typically see circulating in the media these days. Key takeaways:
- Earnings: Humanities graduates’ earnings are substantially higher than those of people without a college degree and are often on par with or higher than those of graduates in non-engineering fields.
- Earnings Disparities: Except in a few northwestern states, humanities majors earn at least 40 percent more than people with only a high school degree.
- Unemployment: The unemployment rate of humanities majors is around 2-4 percent in every state, similar to that of engineering and business majors and substantially lower than that of people without a college degree.
- Occupational Versatility: Humanities graduates make up big portions of the legal, museum and library workforces across all states; other significant areas of humanities graduate employment are education, management and sales.
Without question, the total cost of college attendance should continue to be a concern for all of us. And earnings and occupation are not the only measures of success in one’s career or life. But I am excited, as a dean, to have in hand the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ new Humanities Indicators report and its “State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce and Beyond”report as resources to use to help current undergraduate and graduate students see how humanities majors in all 50 states have put their degrees to work across a broad spectrum of occupations and industries.
The workforce data in this new American Academy of Arts & Sciences report is the perfect complement to individual storytelling in helping today’s humanities majors think through “What are you going to do with that?” — and see clearly the vast world of work that opens to them through education in these disciplines.
Related: OPINION: Studying humanities can prepare the next generation of social justice leaders
“What can’t you do with a humanities degree?” is a tagline we invite the George Mason undergraduate admissions officers to keep top of mind as they begin their recruitment road trips.
Even as technological change is accelerating and reshaping jobs in ways that will require all of us to reinvent our careers, this American Academy of Arts & Sciences report gives today’s college students a data-informed way to conceptualize both the job opportunities and the career earning trajectories of humanities majors in all 50 states and across many sectors of our nation’s knowledge-based economy.
Ann Ardis is dean of George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
This story about humanities degrees was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.
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