The future of humanities education in the United States is under threat, as universities across the country grapple with budget constraints and political pressure to prioritise more “monetisable” disciplines. From coast to coast, students and faculty are sounding the alarm, warning that the devaluation of the liberal arts could have dire consequences for both individuals and society.
At Montclair State University in New Jersey, students recently held a mock funeral to mourn the “death” of the school’s humanities and social science departments. Carrying bouquets of flowers and a tombstone inscribed with the names of 15 affected programmes, they lamented the administration’s plan to consolidate the College of Humanities and Social Sciences into four thematic schools.
“I have dreams that cannot be monetised. I have a problem with our society that cannot be solved with an algorithm. I have words to write and say that cannot be generated artificially,” said junior Miranda Kawiecki, one of the protest’s organisers.
Similar fears are playing out at universities across the country. In Indiana, lawmakers passed legislation last year forcing the state’s public universities to cut or consolidate around 20% of their degree programmes, predominantly in the humanities and social sciences. The University of Texas at Austin is bracing for cuts that could target ethnic and regional disciplines, while the University of North Carolina plans to close several area studies centres.
The crisis stems from a combination of factors, including years of disinvestment in public education and political pressure from the right. But at a deeper level, it reflects a widening conflict over the “value” of higher education, with increasingly corporatised universities favouring market-driven metrics over the holistic development of the individual that has long been the aspiration of humanistic education.
“The humanities simply don’t fit a corporate model because they are just not monetisable in the same way the sciences or even the social sciences are,” said Adam Rzepka, a professor of English at Montclair State. “And the deeper reason they’re coming under attack is that free thought and rigorous, free inquiry is dangerous to executive power.”
As universities partner with corporate-style consulting firms to restructure and streamline their academic offerings, the fate of the liberal arts hangs in the balance. Some see the endgame as a political and educational “oligarchy”, in which the children of elites can access a humanistic education while the rest of the country is relegated to vocational training.
Yet even as the crisis deepens, there are glimmers of hope. Faculty at Portland State University successfully fought back against layoffs of non-tenure track instructors, many from the College of Liberal Arts. And some experts believe universities will eventually reinvest in the liberal arts model, recognising its intrinsic value to both individuals and society.
“Nationwide, people are making really hasty decisions,” said Bill Knight, a professor of English at Portland State. “And it’s tragic because it’s hard to get these things back when they’re cut.”
