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Oh, I wouldn’t say that. The number of majors isn’t as relevant for most administrative purposes as the number of students enrolled in courses, and classics departments tend to do reasonably well. Most colleges have at least 20 or so students in the introductory language courses and 5-10 (or even 15) in the upper-level courses, which is a perfectly reasonable amount of students given the nature of the courses. Any more students, in fact, would likely be problematic. Classical studies courses typically enroll 20-30 students, though some lecture classes at publics can have upwards of 80 students. </p>
<p>Additionally, there’s the unpleasant reality that there simply aren’t that many good classics departments. Most students seriously interested in classics apply to a lot of the same schools. Adding to that, many students applying to top schools - which includes a highly disproportionate number of students from private high schools - have taken Latin. To be frank, I lost track of the number of prospective students visiting the classics booth during admitted students days proudly mentioning a few years of high school Latin; I was never terribly impressed, and I doubt admissions officers are either.</p>