Perhaps that is because “Liberal Arts” includes math, life sciences, and social sciences.
Why do I keep on needing to repeat that “Liberal Arts” is not a synonyms for “Humanities”? I guess that this misunderstanding is why so many colleges use the term “Liberal Arts and Sciences”.
To repeat, again, the term “Liberal Arts” does not use “Liberal” in the political sense, as in “open minded” or “Progressive”, nor does it use “Art” in the sense of fine or performing arts. So “Liberal arts” does not mean “humanities, taught by progressive professors”.
It’s true that sticker price has increased much faster than inflation. However, only a small minority of students attending 4-year colleges in the United States pay sticker price. At many colleges, >90% of students receive grants (either financial or scholarship). More relevant is how the price students typically pay has changed over time. This has had smaller changes. For example, the College Board reports the following change in average net cost over time.
Average Net Cost After Grant Aid in 2022 Dollars (2006 is earliest year listed in report)
4-Year Publics: $19k in 2006 → $19k in 2022
4-Year Privates: $34k in 2006 → $33k in 2022
Rather than a rapid increase in cost for everyone, it’s more the distribution of how much revenue is received from different groups has changed, particularly at the highly selective colleges that are emphasized on this forum. For example, my parents had a ~median income, When I attended college, costs were challenging for them. However, today my college would have charged $0 cost to my parents and most other families with near median income – much more affordable.
In any case, the portion of bachelor’s degree recipients in humanities + social sciences increased from 24% in 1980 to 29% in 2005. Sticker price was increasing at the same time humanities majors were increasing. There wasn’t a significant decrease until near 2010, and that decrease became more rapid in the 2010-2015 period. Something seems to have changed in this period, and it doesn’t appear that the change was primarily a higher average net cost.
This sounds like a plausible explanation, but also doesn’t fit will with the specific time period of the decline. If the primary driving force is employers don’t favor history and other humanities + social science majors, then I’d expect to see this reflected in things like unemployment rate and salary. This hasn’t happened. The average inflation adjusted starting salary for humanities majors has remained fairly flat outside of recession events. For example, the average inflation adjusted starting salary for history majors in 1990 was reported to be $40k. In 2015, it was $39k – not a large change. History and humanities majors had much lower average starting salaries than the typical college grad throughout this multi-decade period suggesting that history and humanities majors have weaker employment prospects than average, yet students still chose humanities and history majors in increasing numbers until ~2010.
There’s still a sizable group for whom the rapid rise in college cost is out of proportion to the increase in their incomes. Perhaps they’re choosing majors that may justify the higher cost, at least with greater certainty.
So, it’s really not the tuition being paid that has gone up; it’s the cost of buying a house in the suburbs that makes median-income families really nervous for their children.
Just curious. Where does the funding for this equipment usually come from? From the info I can find, about half of the top 50 schools in endowment by students are LACs. Also, tuition for these schools is generally as high or higher than larger universities.
As noted in my earlier post, sticker price has gone up far more rapidly than inflation, but the vast majority of students attending 4-year colleges do not pay that sticker price due to FA grants and scholarships. If you look at the average price students actually pay, there are far more mild changes. For example, the the earlier post notes that when you compare the net cost after FA grants in constant 2022 $, there was essentially no change compared to 2006, which the earliest reported year.
This is not a new finding. I’ve noted this pattern at specific colleges, in previous posts. An example earlier post showing average net cost between 1999 and 2013 at Stanford is quoted below. Stanford cost increased for typical wealthy families and decreased for typical lower and middle income families.
Average Net Cost at Stanford Over Time (2013 $)
1999 – $31,700
2000 – $30,400
2001 – $32,800
2002 – $33,100
2003 – $30,600
2004 – $31,400
2005 – $32,700
2006 – $32,600
2007 – $33,100
2008 – $31,900
2009 – $29,300 (large increase in financial aid this year, likely due to new FA policy + subprime mortgage crisis)
2010 – $29,200 (still abnormally low average cost)
2011 – $29,700 (still abnormally low average cost)
2012 – $30,400
2013 – $31,700 (finally recovering from 2009 FA increase and returning to normal level)
If Americans don’t seriously invest in history and other humanities disciplines, we encourage the ahistoric ignorance upon which reaction relies. . . . Progress depends on studying and arguing about the past in an open and informed manner. This is especially true in a moment like our own, in which Americans use history to fight over which vision of the country will dominate politics. If there are no historians to reflect meaningfully and accurately on the past, then ignorance and hatred are sure to triumph.
. . .
Without professional historians, history education will be left more and more in the hands of social media influencers, partisan hacks and others unconcerned with achieving a complex, empirically informed understanding of the past.
. . .
If professional historians become a thing of the past, there will be no one able to temper these types of arguments with coolheaded analysis and bring a seriousness of purpose, depth and thoughtful consideration to discussions of who Americans are and who we want to be as a nation.
. . .
Americans must do everything in their power to avert the end of history. If we don’t, exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies will dominate our historical imagination and make it impossible to understand, and learn from, the past.
Happy MLK day, especially to those who have more than a superficial idea of who he was and for what he stood.
These are usually paid for by governmental or industry grants, from state appropriations, or from income from university income generating activities, such as contracts and patents. In some cases, they are paid for by donations specifically for research.
Endowments really cannot provide the money needed for these equipment. Only around 4.5% of an endowment can be spent a year. For a LAC like Williams, with one of the largest endowments per student, around $4 billion, that would be $180 million. According to its communications, its operating budget was, in 2021, $285 million. According to the same statement, Williams has to pay some $160 million out of its endowment.
Most colleges may not have as generous financial aid as WIlliams, but they also have far less by way of endowments, and furthermore, there are also restrictions on use of endowment funds.
While, at research universities, money from endowments is used for research, this, in itself, is really not enough to provide the funding needed for expensive equipment.
History majors from schools like Williams, Amherst and Princeton feed into the top 10 law schools. History majors are in essence pre-law students, so there are many options and career paths in any field related to law. Also, at the top LACS, History majors typically double major in Econ and poly sci which makes them very recruitable into I-banks and management consulting.
Hasn’t that always been the case, and haven’t professional historians been ignored when what they find does not suit the politics of those writing their own versions of history?
Bessner also writes about how only 27% of history PhD graduates work in tenure-track jobs at universities, but then that is another topic, which is that each faculty member at a research university supervises far more graduate students to PhD completion than needed to replace the faculty member upon retirement, so it is not surprising that most PhD graduates (in history or otherwise) do not work in tenure-track jobs.
History is certainly important. But the distortions of and attacks on it are certainly nothing new.
Sure, but I don’t think the author was talking about history majors who head to law school, banks, or management consulting. Or at least that was not my interpretation of the column.
I agree with this, and thought the same thing when reading. (I’ve posted those same links in other contexts.) Here is a link to the extraordinary “Measuring Rod” guidelines (discussed in those links) which was used for a half century to distort History in the South (and beyond) for generations. It is eye opening.
But while I agree this writer doesn’t adequately explain the problem over the long term, IMO the long history of populist myth-making (especially in the South) cuts in the direction of taking such topics more seriously today. Much of what ills us today can be traced directly to a such widespread distortions. Ahistorical representations are trafficked constantly among pundits, politicians, and the press (see the gross distortion of MLK’s legacy, for example, or the mind-numbing attacks on teaching accurate depictions of race relations.) It even happens among the well-educated participants on CC about a variety of topics. People seem to assume that if they are good at math or programming, it doesn’t matter if they are basically historically illiterate.
Histories are told, and taught, in many different versions all around the world. Not only conscious and unconscious biases are inevitable, but histories are often written, or at least heavily influenced, by the victors or those in power. Does that contribute to at least some students, who would otherwise be interested in studying history, gravitating toward STEM, where truths are often more easily verifiable? The same may apply to some social sciences where different, even opposite, conclusions can often be drawn because of their heavy reliance on statistics, which can be manipulated to tell different stories.
Law school admission primarily relates to LSAT + GPA stats. Kids who attend highly selective colleges tend to have high stats, so they are more likely to “feed into” T10 law schools. Major has little influence. A kid can attend law school with any major. Things like political science / government tend to be more popular among kids interested in law school than history, although some do choose history. I agree that it’s good to consider what students actually do with history majors, rather than make assumptions. You mentioned Amherst. According to their post-grad outcomes, the most common first destinations for history majors across all of the available years are listed as:
History Majors at Amherst
1 . Finance/Banking – 13%
1 . Education – 13%
3. Consulting – 9%
4. Seeking Employment – 9%
5. Legal / Paralegal – 4%
5. Non-profit – 4%
…
*. Law School – 3%
At extremely selective private colleges like the ones you mentioned, the top 3 most common first destinations for history majors are usually finance, consulting, and teaching Law school is uncommon. Of course these are not a good representation of the average college. Reducing selectivity a bit, Boston College has a much larger portion pursue law / law school, and a much smaller portion pursue consulting, as summarized below:
History Majors at Boston College
1 . Law School – 10%
2. Finance/Banking – 10%
3. Legal/ Paralegal – 9%
4. Service / Volunteer – 7% (Peace corps, Americorps, …)
5. Master’s in Education - 6%
Comparing to a non-selective public college – at U Kentucky – the law school percentage increased further, and consulting decreased to 0. I expect not finding quality employment relates to the relatively high percentage of history majors choosing to pursue a master’s degree or law school.
History Majors at U Kentucky
1 . Seeking Employment – 32%
2. Master’s Degree – 23% (all masters grouped together, including MBA)
3 . Law School – 10%
4. Military – 3%
4. Not Seeking Employment/School --3%
Not really. Many “conclusions” in some social sciences are commonly drawn with relatively small amount of data, or data with somewhat different characteristics needed to be aggregated, often out of the necessity. Better understanding of statistics would certainly help, but that isn’t going to keep even those who understand statistics perfectly from drawing their “conclusions”.
True. But students expecting to get to the cutting edge in the undergrad don’t enroll into single variable calculus.
Most places give AP credit for it (some require a 5 on the test, but it’s not that high a bar). MIT, for one, allows testing out of multivariable calculus (for which there is no AP), and a few other intro courses (for which it doesn’t give AP credits) in various disciplines through Advanced Standing Examinations.
DS1 just graduated from it after 5 semesters, having taken a number of graduate-level courses and been involved in cutting edge CS Theory research, co-writing papers with world’s leading investigators in their fields (at MIT and an international peer), and presenting at top international conferences.
And DS2 is doing cutting-edge math research as a high-schooler. (Can’t give further details as they would be deanonymizing.)
Math and CS are, of course, not the traditional domains of LACs, but it doesn’t stop them from offering those degrees, and I’ve read people opining on this board of LACs superiority to research universities for pursuing undergrad in these fields. And it may very well be the case for some students. Y’know, the ones needing hand-holding through single-variable calculus.
