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> Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened? It costs too much and the jobs you get out of college (if you get

> Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened? It costs too much and the jobs you get out of college (if you get one) are paying way too low. English has been one of the most popular majors in the last decade, but unfortunately the economy cannot meaningfully employ as many English majors. So people end up in careers that are completely unrelated. On the better side, sales and marketing jobs hire them, on the worse, a receptionist or barista. You can actually go to a trade school and come out better off on the other side.

jmclnx 4y ago
There was a time where almost everyone majoring in liberal Arts could make a decent living. They were viewed as educated and had an open door to almost any career. I knew many liberal Art majors who ended up programming and as tech writers in the early days, never mind sales/marketing. And I am sure quite a few ended up in Business due to their learned communication skills. Also, I had Uncles (non college) who worked selling carpets, worked in grocery stores who were able to afford a very nice life. They were able to put their children through college. But since the early 80s, those jobs are now a race to the bottom. Now it seems you are hired only if you are pigeon holed into a specific career, and if that career path becomes obsolete, you are SOL.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  > I knew many liberal Art majors who ended up programming and as tech writers in the early days In the early days no one could hire people who had degrees in these fields, because the university courses didn't exist. So they had to go further afield. Also in these early days fewer people had college degrees. You were hiring the social (and sometimes intellectual) elite whenever you hired anyone with any degree.
- klooney 4y ago
  That only worked because college was a finishing school for the well brought up (plus the occasional striver), and businesses felt comfortable just trying to hire that demographic. It doesn't work if businesses are trying to hire based on qualifications, and if half of all young workers have a college degree.
cafard 4y ago
The only job that majoring in English remotely qualifies one for is teaching English at a school that is not bound by teacher-qualification rules. Well, maybe editing, or entry-level work in publishing. (Qualifies one for, that is, more than any randomly selected undergraduate major.) In my day, a fair chunk of the English majors had it in mind to go to law school. A very few aspired to become professors, and some may actually have done so; but I don't remember any undergraduate peers who spoke of wanting an academic career.
- dml2135 4y ago
  Sure but, there are plenty of jobs with the qualification of "randomly selected undergraduate major", and English is just fine for that.
  - rnk 4y ago
    I think that has been significantly decreasing over time, this is shown by the problem with them getting reasonable jobs that support them financially.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      Are they graduating from Princeton, or even somewhere like VA Tech or UCLA? Or are they coming out of East Iowa Upstairs Liberal Arts College? As someone that has done hiring for entry level IT gigs, there is a notable difference between a green-but-interested English major from Ohio State vs. an ITT Tech or WGU grad. I'm not just making that up: my old data center manager was an English major from OSU and a die-hard linux guy, was great. Meanwhile all of our hires who... got DUIs, got fired for sexual harassment, caused 3 hour outages, and ended up involuntarily committed in mental hospitals, were no-degree or dubious-online-degree holders (these were all different people, btw). You really saw the difference when it came to independent tasks and higher-level stuff, like running projects or management roles. Knew plenty of folks who were amazing and only had an AA (or less), but they were exceptions to the rule when compared to the ones who were sub-par.

jmclnx 4y ago

There was a time where almost everyone majoring in liberal Arts could make a decent living. They were viewed as educated and had an open door to almost any career. I knew many liberal Art majors who ended up programming and as tech writers in the early days, never mind sales/marketing. And I am sure quite a few ended up in Business due to their learned communication skills. Also, I had Uncles (non college) who worked selling carpets, worked in grocery stores who were able to afford a very nice life. They were able to put their children through college. But since the early 80s, those jobs are now a race to the bottom. Now it seems you are hired only if you are pigeon holed into a specific career, and if that career path becomes obsolete, you are SOL.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> I knew many liberal Art majors who ended up programming and as tech writers in the early days In the early days no one could hire people who had degrees in these fields, because the university courses didn't exist. So they had to go further afield. Also in these early days fewer people had college degrees. You were hiring the social (and sometimes intellectual) elite whenever you hired anyone with any degree.
klooney 4y ago
That only worked because college was a finishing school for the well brought up (plus the occasional striver), and businesses felt comfortable just trying to hire that demographic. It doesn't work if businesses are trying to hire based on qualifications, and if half of all young workers have a college degree.

cafard 4y ago

The only job that majoring in English remotely qualifies one for is teaching English at a school that is not bound by teacher-qualification rules. Well, maybe editing, or entry-level work in publishing. (Qualifies one for, that is, more than any randomly selected undergraduate major.) In my day, a fair chunk of the English majors had it in mind to go to law school. A very few aspired to become professors, and some may actually have done so; but I don't remember any undergraduate peers who spoke of wanting an academic career.

dml2135 4y ago
Sure but, there are plenty of jobs with the qualification of "randomly selected undergraduate major", and English is just fine for that.
- rnk 4y ago
  I think that has been significantly decreasing over time, this is shown by the problem with them getting reasonable jobs that support them financially.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Are they graduating from Princeton, or even somewhere like VA Tech or UCLA? Or are they coming out of East Iowa Upstairs Liberal Arts College? As someone that has done hiring for entry level IT gigs, there is a notable difference between a green-but-interested English major from Ohio State vs. an ITT Tech or WGU grad. I'm not just making that up: my old data center manager was an English major from OSU and a die-hard linux guy, was great. Meanwhile all of our hires who... got DUIs, got fired for sexual harassment, caused 3 hour outages, and ended up involuntarily committed in mental hospitals, were no-degree or dubious-online-degree holders (these were all different people, btw). You really saw the difference when it came to independent tasks and higher-level stuff, like running projects or management roles. Knew plenty of folks who were amazing and only had an AA (or less), but they were exceptions to the rule when compared to the ones who were sub-par.