Depends on what the student wants. Every student may not want to be on every cutting edge, but some/many students may want to be on a cutting edge of some sub-field of interest.
Expecting to get to the cutting edge in (for example) math when you enroll in a frosh level single variable calculus is not a realistic expectation. Perhaps it was the cutting edge in math in the late 17th century CE, but it is now commonly taught to ordinary college frosh in colleges and universities all over the place.
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I know kids that enrolled in Grad level algebraic number theory freshman fall at Princeton and earned an A. It depends on what a kid wants.
Focusing on broader learning that lasts a lifetime over specific job training? Some of this is starting to sound so familiar . . . I just can’t put my finger on it . . .
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Sarcasm is not necessary. Employers don’t mean studying history or some such field. They still mean areas of study that are relevant for them. Here is an example of the secular decline of history majors over the prior decade. Not picking on history per se — just trying to give an example of areas that have little relevance to day to day stuff vs relevant areas.
Trying to imagine a profession where understanding history isn’t relevant. Can’t come up with a single one.
As for the decline in the number of history majors, I think we might disagree on whether in the long term this is a positive or a negative development.
Probably why the teaching of history is often politicized. Since some people major in history with a goal of teaching history (in school or some other context), they may find that a less attractive career path if it is highly politicized, so they may choose some other career path and college major.
I don’t know what people are thinking about when they use “cutting edge”, but, by definition, all fundamental research done at universities is “cutting edge”. Research is not funded by NSF nor is is it published, unless it demonstrates something new in the field.
The term “cutting edge” is from industry, where most research is into modifying and improving existing products or processes. It rarely reveals something that is fundamentally new. The purpose of the fundamental research done at universities is to expand the “envelope” of human knowledge and understanding.
Kids are not at college in order to be exposed to “cutting edge” of any field. They are in college to learn the basic fundamentals of the field. Until they have finished at least their masters, more likely a PhD, they will generally not have the tools to understand the most advanced aspects of their field.
Again, “cutting edge” is an industry term, used to denote the newest and shiniest techniques and gadgets, for specific directions of research, and specific goals and target. Tech development is, in essence, moving to a goal, and the closer you get the that goal, the fewer people and companies there are. It does not denote the newest advances in science - those expand in all directions, and a huge part of that is also filling gaps.
Perhaps, though, people mean “research which has the most impact on our fundamental understanding of the field.” Unfortunately, most undergraduates in the field do not yet have the tools to understand the research, and most will never have those tools. Those tools are generally only provided in grad school.
So having impactful research happening a few buildings over from the undergraduate lecture hall, or even have the faculty running that research teach the advanced class in the field will not provide the undergraduate any more understanding of these advances than a student at a college 800 miles away that is taught by somebody doing other research that will have less impact.
In fact, since, as @thumper1 correctly opined, many people with PhDs are not very good teachers, it is likely that the best people to teach that field are people who have more experience teaching and spend less time engaging in the research with the biggest impact on the field.
Which brings us back to LACs. LACs do not often have the resources needed for high-impact research in life and physical sciences, having neither the funding for expensive equipment, nor the multiple grad students and post-docs these require. So their faculty rarely engage in this type of research. However, their faculty are very well trained in teaching the background needed to prepare a student to either work in the field, or to go on to the advanced degrees that are required for the ability to understand and engage in this type of research. That is one of the reasons that so many LAC students go on to get PhDs.
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I feel as if I have already posted everything that I might want to say on this topic, but here is a gift link to an article in today’s NY Times that seems very relevant so if anyone is interested but doesn’t have a subscription, they continue to think about the importance (or not) of studying history. I have a BFF from middle school who is currently a tenured history professor and I noted that they commented on it today! 
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The kids learn a decent amount of history all through middle school and high school. It is debatable whether some 10% of the population (whatever the number was in the heyday of History) should specialize in history thereafter in college. What will these people end up doing eventually that uses their history knowledge? What services will society pay for that require knowledge of history? Maybe someone in the foreign service etc. Maybe history teachers – these are small numbers. To say that learning history develops critical thinking skills and therefore people should learn history is a stretch. Many different majors develop critical thinking skills. The history professors may believe that only their major is uniquely situated to train in critical thinking skills. This is simply not true. If you are studying history in college, it is consumption – usually not an investment in your skills. The job market is rational. It pays for what it wants.
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Whatever they do will use their “history knowledge.”
If so, then “many different majors,” including history, will prepare students for a wide range of professions.
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You need both domain knowledge/skills and critical thinking skills. In the old days, when there was quasi life time employment, when American companies were dominating the global economy for many decades due to various reasons, companies could afford to bring in young college graduates, train them, and hold them on for a life time. Nowadays, this is confined only to very high skill very high margin businesses where you take a kid with a certain level of skill and train her/him further. Companies want kids that are more ready with tangible skills. Stuff that they don’t have the time to train, but nevertheless need. It is a changed world. Nobody is expecting the kids to come in with low levels of critical thinking skills – it is not one or the other. Both critical thinking skills and domain knowledge/skills are being demanded.
While history majors are singled out, it’s part of a trend across a wide variety of majors that seems to have primarily occurred in a limited time period Some specific numbers are below using NCES classifications. It looks like the decline in humanities + social science majors didn’t start until ~2010, and primarily occurred in the short period between 2010 and 2015.
Looking at history majors specifically, history majors increased from 2001 to 2010, remained flat until ~2013, then had a sharp decline starting in 2013 and continued to decline for a few years after 2013. I suspect 9/11 with the World Trade centers contributed to the history major increase that began in 2001. However the 2013 decline more relates to a common trend across a wide variety of majors.
For example, English majors had a slow increase from 1996 to 2008, then started a slow decent in 2008 that became steep by 2012. Like history, 2012 to 2015 is period of steep decline. As noted in the article increasing societal pressure to favor STEM + nursing fields and avoid certain non-STEM fields contributes. This includes various governmental actions such as Obama’s Education to Innovate, which began in late 2009. I expect the 2008-2009 recession also had a notable influence and contributed to students more favoring majors where they perceived better employment outcomes after graduating than in the past. Such events often take a few years for students to propagate through, before they have the maximum impact in degree completions.
% of Bachelors Degrees in Different Fields (History is in Social Sciences Grouping)
1990: 16% Humanities, 11% Social Sci, 10% Tech, 10% Ed., 6% Math/Science, 5% Health
1995: 17% Humanities, 11% Social Sci, 9% Tech, 9% Ed., 8% Math/Science, 7% Health
2000: 17% Humanities, 10% Social Sci, 10% Tech, 9% Ed., 7% Math/Science, 6% Health
2005: 18% Humanities, 11% Social Sci, 9% Tech, 7% Ed., 7% Math/Science, 6% Health
2010: 17% Humanities, 10% Social Sci, 8% Tech, 6% Ed., 8% Math/Science, 8% Health
2015: 14% Humanities, 8% Social Sci, 10% Tech, 5% Ed., 9% Math/Science, 12% Health
2019: 13% Humanities, 8% Social Sci, 12% Tech, 4% Ed., 9% Math/Science, 13% Health
The marketplace makes adjustments; people also double major more than they did fifteen years ago; computer science has been a confounding factor across the board. Again, I resist the repeated attempts to reduce the liberal arts to strictly “non-STEM” subjects.
Couple of other factors have added to the decline.
First, the cost of college education has skyrocketed. In the past, many could reasonably afford a major with longer term payback prospects and even risk a major that never paid off. With current costs, especially if it is funded with debt (student and parents) prospects of an immediate ROI have become more important, pushing students to major in subjects that have immediate employment application.
Second, many careers in the past in areas such as sales, marketing and financial services were much less quantitatively driven. General knowledge and the ability to connect dots, as well as a high level of EQ were often sufficient to be employable and successful. As more decisions in those area have become data driven, employers are looking for indicia of those skill sets. This is not to say that a history major does not have data driven analytical sales, but an employer has to look at a transcript to find it. Will they take that time when they sort through a thousand resumes when they know applicants in other majors have already demonstrated those skills.
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I was referring to the change in major distribution noted in the article, which does not follow the liberal arts vs vocational grouping well, so no reason to use that label to describe the pattern. Instead the decline in major enrollment more closely follows STEM (including health/nursing) vs non-STEM, and I noted reasons why that pattern may occur.
For example, math/science is a part of liberal arts, yet math/science majors had an increase while humanities and social sciences were rapidly decreasing during the 2010-2015 time period. There seems to be a very different pattern between most STEM liberal arts and most non-STEM liberal arts. Similarly education had the largest decrease in enrollment… dropping from 10% to 4%, yet education is vocational and not liberal arts. The “liberal arts” grouping does not following the major decline listed in the article or the stats above.
I think we’re saying the same thing.
Add to that the general belief that employers are increasingly preferring new employees to have more education, training, and credentialing at the employees’ own expense instead of being willing to do on-the-job training or a greater amount of on-the-job learning and it adds even more pressure to choose college and major for immediate employability.
Additionally, the education, training, and credentialing for some professions has increased, meaning that to become entry-level-job-ready now requires more and more expensive education, training, and credentialing than the same job did previously, increasing the cost and debt pressure.
Law, architecture, probably medicine, too. I read the article @Alqbamine32 cited and its central thesis is that History isn’t going to disappear as a subject, but that it will continue to be popular with people who have the money to enter one of the so-called “learned professions”, none of which are going away either. We’ve entered into a new Gilded Age (and perhaps, the subject of a different thread.)
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Many services do require or are helped by a knowledge of history specific to the subject. This includes even those where a bachelor’s degree is not required. For example:
- An electrician is called to a job and finds an old house with knob and tube wiring and other historical electrical practices that are no longer done. Knowledge of such can help in determining how safe the setup is and how any needed repairs or installations can be done safely.
- A police officer with knowledge of the history of policing with respect to Black people may be better able to handle interactions with Black people encountered on the job.
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