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Advanced Degrees in the Humanities

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The past seven decades have seen dramatic growth, marked decline, and then partial recovery in the completion of advanced degrees in the humanities. In the most recent years for which data are available, the trends diverged at the master’s and doctoral levels, as the number of master’s degrees fell sharply (similar to the recent downturn in the number of bachelor’s degree completions) while the number of new doctoral degrees remained at a relatively high level.

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* The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1948. These disciplines include English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English (including linguistics and classical studies), and philosophy. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the differences between the two trend lines.

Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System, and Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).

All data for years 1987 and later have been tabulated using the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). For an explanation of the advantages of using the CIP to tally humanities degree completions, see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.

For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute the academic humanities as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.

See also the Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees.

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* The “Historical Categories” are the limited set of humanities disciplines that have been tracked by the federal government since 1948. These disciplines include English language and literature, history, languages and literatures other than English (including linguistics and classical studies), and philosophy. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the differences between the two trend lines.

Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System, and Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).

All data for years 1987 and later have been tabulated using the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). For an explanation of the advantages of using the CIP to tally humanities degree completions, see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.

For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute the academic humanities as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.

See also the Note on the Definition of Advanced Degrees.

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Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).

See the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.

For an inventory of the specific degree programs that compose each of the humanities disciplines as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.

Copy link

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).

See the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares.

For an inventory of the specific degree programs that compose each of the humanities disciplines as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the Degree Program Code Catalog.

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