

As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry - austinz
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html

======
ars
Reading this article is surreal, like living in an alternate world: "...and
because there’s so much federal funding for science".

Reminds me of the joke:

Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in
1935. "Herr Altmann," said his secretary, "I notice you're reading Der
Stürmer! I can't understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of
masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?"

"On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I
learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America.
But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all
the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we're on the verge of taking
over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!"

------
mlchild
One way to make the humanities more attractive might be to dissolve the link
between learning to express oneself in words and studying literature. To quote
pg, "students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget
might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what
constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens." [1]

While in high school I gutted it out in English so I could make it to my next
math class, as I grow older I've found myself increasingly drawn to reading
and writing. The power and precision of the right word at the right moment can
be intoxicating.

Perhaps if college and high school students were given the chance to peek into
the whole world of opportunity in written expression, the humanities would see
a resurgence.

1 - [http://paulgraham.com/essay.html](http://paulgraham.com/essay.html).
"Moneyball" is one of my favorites and I've read an awful lot of thoughtful
food-focused essays in the last few years, but does anyone have a good one on
the role of color in fashion? The cerulean rant in "Devil Wears Prada?"

~~~
yummyfajitas
Who would teach such a class? It's unlikely that English professors would.
Maybe a few philosophy profs would, but there aren't a lot of people in
humanities departments capable of teaching this.

And for that reason, it doesn't address the fundamental problem (as perceived
by university administrators): "We have 11 humanities departments that are
quite extraordinary, and _we want to provide for that faculty_..."

(The principal/agent problem is a common problem in non-profits, which are
often merely schemes for funneling money to assorted insiders.)

~~~
davidw
The one "English" class that I did not _loathe_ in high school was a
journalism class. It was about learning how to communicate with other people
clearly and effectively and without the piles and piles of bullshit that
regular literature classes trafficked in.

------
raverbashing
Well, duh

Hard to justify the price tag.

I'm not against humanities per se, but at what's being charged by the top
Universities, well...

"I'm going to get another loan for a Masters in English" jeez The younger me
would have answered that with "but you already speak English" (yes, there are
several sub-branches, and things to be researched, etc)

But get this, people are probably not going to be less interested in
humanities, but they're not going for a formal education in it. You can study
languages, literature, history, without needing to pay an arm and a leg for
it.

And guess what, Computer Science started that trend.

------
cubancigar11
Interest in humanities is fading because humanities have failed the world.
Instead of understanding the society and bringing about some positive change,
they have become a tool for cultural domination. Some even say that the role
of humanities, and history teaching, has always been about cultural
domination.

But the idea of cultural domination is anathema to most of the 'new
generation' which relies, rather, depends on cultural assimilation and
tolerance in this global economy for their bread and butter. And this change
hasn't come due to humanities... it has come due to technological revolution.
So, of course, the interest in humanities is fading.

~~~
Qom
That's a rather extreme viewpoint. Don't forget that it's things like culture
that make life worth living. I love technology, but I also recognize that the
end goal of technological progress is to allow us to experience more culture
by augmenting and facilitating our lives.

I honestly don't see how studying Ancient Greek for example is supposed to
encourage cultural domination. The term "humanities" denotes a vast array of
subjects.

If there is cultural domination going on, it's mostly with the mass media
output of whichever country happens to be in a position of power at the time.
For instance, the US have been flooding the market for a long while with their
audio, video and written content thanks to their dominant economic position.
Local production simply cannot compete with billion-dollar budgets. This leads
to cultural intoxication in millions of minds around the world as they are
exposed every day to the American way of viewing the world and American
cultural norms. A humanities course, no matter how active in its propaganda,
cannot possibly rival this kind of utter cultural domination.

~~~
chrismonsanto
> but I also recognize that the end goal of technological progress is to allow
> us to experience more culture by augmenting and facilitating our lives

For you, anyway. For me (a theoretical computer scientist/mathematician), more
advanced technology is its own reward. I don't really care what the results
are applied to.

~~~
Qom
Expanding our understanding of the universe IS part of culture since it allows
us new avenues of thought. The arts and sciences were considered to be the
same thing not so long ago.

I also find it highly doubtful that you do not care about the results of
technology. Technology pretty much shapes our lives so you cannot plausibly
pretend to be so blasé about it all. Our continued existence depends on the
responsible use of powerful inventions so not caring about the results is a
pretty unscientific and downright dangerous attitude anyway.

------
JonSkeptic
Perhaps the diminishing interest in humanities is linked to the poor job
market for humanities degrees?

From the article:

>But with the recession having helped turn college, in the popular view, into
largely a tool for job preparation, administrators are concerned.

And I am concerned for the administrators. Who has the money to go to Stanford
to get a degree that offers very limited career opportunities at pay levels
that will never recoup your college costs? Only the most foolhardy or the
richest will do this. I am concerned that the administrators apparently do not
realize this.

Just for fun, here's a link to the tuition and fees page of Stanford:

[http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/tuitio...](http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/students/tuition-
fees_12-13)

Now, who wants to pay upwards of 20k a semester after housing, books, tuition
and expenses to get a degree in "Renaissance French literature and the
philosophy of language", "German", "philosophy", or "world languages and
culture"? How long will it take to pay back your student loans? 40+ years on a
philosopher's salary. Will your crippling debt hinder any other aspects of
your life, like getting married or buying a house? Hopefully, not.

College tuition is so high, that the decision to pursue a degree that does not
virtually guarantee a decent paying job is financially and almost morally
untenable, unless you already have substantial liquidity.

But the academics, as smart as they are, just don't seem to make the
connection:

>“Both inside the humanities and outside, people feel that the intellectual
firepower in the universities is in the sciences, that the important issues
that people of all sorts care about, like inequality and climate change, are
being addressed not in the English departments,” said Andrew Delbanco, a
Columbia University professor who writes about higher education.

Only a very small subset of people go to college to 'change the world' or
'tackle pressing issues', most go to make a better life for themselves
somewhere down the line. It's really hard to correlate study in Renaissance
French literature and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt
with a better life.

This article really paints the picture that people who handle administration
for colleges, and professors who study college trends, really don't see the
cost benefit analysis aspect of it at all. Or maybe they just value degrees
far more than they are actually worth.

\---

Sorry, that was too long and I think I've got to cut myself off there.

~~~
gexla
> Who has the money to go to Stanford to get a degree that offers very limited
> career opportunities at pay levels that will never recoup your college
> costs?

A LOT of people. How many applications do they turn down? They can just keep
jacking up the prices and people will still keep going. The name is worth far
more than the job prospects available. I'm just not sure that they only want
to be a club for the super rich (or maybe they do and just admit enough poor
people to try to appear otherwise.)

Similarly, I can't see employment being a problem for someone graduating from
Stanford. They'll get paid.

------
otoburb
One of the comments at the bottom of the NYT article points to the real issue
at stake: "If you want more humanities majors, ask colleges to charge less
tuition that doesn't require going into debt."

Although, another way of looking at the situation is that the difficult
economic situation combined with large expected debt load post-graduation acts
winnows out humanities students who just aren't serious about their studies.
Hopefully this translates into more passionate and eager students for
professors to teach amongst the diminished ranks.

~~~
gutnor
Actually it is more "If you want more humanities majors, find some way a
humanities education can be turned into money in the real world after
graduation."

This was this nice previous generation dream that productivity would create a
Star Trek society where people can spend their time in non-profit occupations.

Did not turn out that way. Every minute you study must have a ROI in dollar
because the world is a harsh place if you do not have the right set of skills.

------
gaius
The point of a liberal arts college was never to teach skills, but the final
indoctrination necessary to take one's inherited place as a member of the
upper class. Some people saw it as a shortcut to joining that class. In the
past, it amused members of the class to allow this, but in these economically
straitened times, they're pulling the ladder up. Now, you need to "prove"
you're already a member, by stumping up the cash.

------
mathattack
It is disingenuous for a school to charge 50k per year and wonder why folks
are concerned about getting jobs. Humanities should join STEM, not fight it.
Don't convince someone to study philosophy instead of CS, convince them to
study it in addition to CS. Teach the math majors world languages so they can
read German and French papers. But don't stand as an island, because at
current prices humanities are a terrible buy.

~~~
Mikeb85
You mean students aren't forced to take humanities courses?

For my business degree I had nearly 2 whole years of humanities courses...

~~~
mathattack
In a lot of programs, students aren't required to. In others (my undergrad,
where I had a CS major) the business majors were required to take 7 or 8
classes in the humanities, but they were mostly 101 level classes in 300
person lecture halls with multiple choice exams. This isn't what's implied by
"teaching critical thinking" that the supporters of these departments use to
justify their jobs.

Even where they are required to, I think it can be useful to go deep on a
subject (say History or Psychology) as long as it's paired with something
practical (say Economics).

~~~
Mikeb85
That's unfortunate. We were required to take so many senior humanities courses
that I'm 2/3rds of the way to an economics or philosophy degree...

~~~
mathattack
It's a sign that you're in a good program. :-) The strange this is our
undergraduate business was highly ranked but the non-business classes were
completely watered down.

Why not go all the way on the 2nd degree?

I'm against philosophy degrees on their own, but it does go good supporting
others. You can never get too much economics either.

------
CmonDev
If they are blind enough to not recognize games as a most modern and
innovative art form, well then they should go down together with their
departments and take the world where art is judged based on it's investment
potential with them. Why isn't Another World the game celebrated same way as
Mona Lisa the painting? Because you cannot re-sell it for millions.
Programming is nothing less than practical philosophy (I deal with "objects",
"classes" and other abstractions all day every day). Programming language is
still a language, I know multiple and I can compare them which makes me a
linguist. They should not try so hard to separate from science. They should
acknowledge that art is evolving as well.

~~~
runawaybottle
Games are pretty new, I'd cut them slack on that one. Also, I've been a gamer
all my life, and many games are bad, and are getting worse in terms of
"artistic expression" as the production values go up and up. I'm sure we can
look up a few indie games on Steam, and point to the great visuals, but a lot
of those games are just boring. The game developer must always sacrifice
whatever message, or aesthetic, or meaning they hope to convey for improved
gameplay - the game must be fun. There's just not much art in games for that
reason, the same way there isn't much art in web apps. If you want to point at
the visuals, or music, we can do that obviously.

Anyway, this one seems like a recent game that proves me wrong:
[http://www.stanleyparable.com/](http://www.stanleyparable.com/)

Games like Half Life 2 and Call of Duty try to mimic films in a very theme-
park ride way, something many gamers have pointed out. The gaming community
hasn't exactly figured this one out yet, so I'll let college humanities
departments get a pass on this one.

Films are pretty new too, and academia has more or less embraced it.

~~~
CmonDev
What you just said is equally applicable to painting. Only in painting you can
slap a piece of excrement on canvas and people will be afraid to call it shit.
And it will still sell for $$$. So what kind of new research do they do?
Examining Shakespeare and Homer for the 1000s time? They are not willing to
adapt and they should go down. And they are, that why they are whining.

------
venomsnake
The cynic in me thinks that this worry is because of the threatened profit
margins. Giving a humanities education is a lot cheaper to a student than
giving solid engineering one. If you charge similar tuition the margins on the
former are much higher.

------
nathas
Biggest problem facing youth looking at college is high school.

A large group of kids learn to pass the test and move on. There's very little
unstructured exploration or debate, on the whole. I had some excellent
teachers and classes in high school, and I had some awful ones, but I damn
sure never had freedom to mentally explore interesting topics in-class. High
school was a means to an end; just a way to leave home and go to college.
Personally I didn't take that approach but I know a lot of people who did.

At that point, a student's approach is "do academia to get to next stage". It
doesn't make you care at all about Shakespeare.

And for families that are monetarily burdened by college (read: every family,
save a handful), you're not going to go waste $40k/year for something with no
prospects.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Being a TA at an engineering school, I can say that universities catering
exactly to the exam-focused credentialist attitude _DOES. NOT. HELP._

------
seivan
Humanities on it's own is useless. But combine it with something.

~~~
atlantic
it's --> its. Maybe not so useless.

~~~
seivan
Sorry my bad, I know the difference, except my brain generally when reaching
for those key sets, also goes to the '.

------
drob
I swear this article comes out again every two weeks.

~~~
jacques_chester
There are a lot of unemployed humanities majors with friends, neighbours or
cousins at newspapers, I guess.

------
Surio
@mlchild
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645904))
wrote:

> The power and precision of the right word at the right moment can be
> intoxicating.

@arethuza
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6645940))
replied:

> Not only intoxicating but immensely powerful - we live in an age where
> politics is dominated by form rather than content, "spin" and being "on
> message" are more important that policies.

Both of them are indeed right. Except it has always been like that, and not
necessarily a new phenomena as we sometimes think. Here's a quick excerpt to
an interesting essay in imperial villain making....

 _By the end of the 90s, the hardliners calling for regime change in the east
found that they had a powerful ally in government. This new president was not
prepared to wait to be attacked: he was a new sort of conservative, aggressive
in foreign policy, bitterly anti-French, and intent on turning his country
into the unrivalled global power. It was best, he believed, simply to remove
any hostile Muslim regime that presumed to resist the west.

There was no doubt who would be the first to be targeted: a Muslim dictator
whose family had usurped power in a military coup. According to British
sources, this chief of state was an "intolerant bigot", a "furious fanatic"
with a "rooted and inveterate hatred of Europeans", who had "perpetually on
his tongue the projects of jihad". He was also deemed to be "oppressive and
unjust ... [a] sanguinary tyrant, [and a] perfidious negotiator".

It was, in short, time to take out Tipu Sultan of Mysore. The president of the
board of control, Henry Dundas, the minister who oversaw the East India
Company, had just the man for the job. Richard Wellesley was sent out to India
in 1798 as governor general with specific instructions to effect regime change
in Mysore and replace Tipu with a western-backed puppet. First, however,
Wellesley and Dundas had to justify to the British public a policy whose
outcome had long been decided in private._

Read the rest here:
[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/may/24/foreignpolic...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/may/24/foreignpolicy.india/print)

------
lyricalpolymath
an answer to many of you :) There is no single discipline that is better or
more needed than another. The debate Science+Technology vs Arts+Humanities is
useless: just like your body needs all nutrients, your brain needs all types
of inputs and stimuli. We have areas dedicated to math and others dedicated to
language, both require the connection to logical reasoning. You should work
them all out.

Moreover there is large evidence that Art (and humanities) can set you in the
mindset of hacking. PG himself says that painting can teach many things about
hacking [1] and I am living proof that Art can definitively teach you how to
hack (and also be an entrepreneur): I received my first computer only when I
was 19, but I had been hacking since I was 3 years old, through the art of
Berrocal whose sculptures can be taken apart, transformed and combined, they
are like 3d puzzles, tactile problems that need to be solved [2]. It has
taught me practical tools, methodologies and ways of creatively find solutions
that can be applied to both programming and to the day to day challenges of
entrepreneurship.

There is actually a necessity and a current trend to connect
Arts+Design+Humanities in the STEM education. it's called "from STEM to STEAM"
[3] and it's backed by great figures in both art and computer science such as
John Maeda

Don't despise arts+humanities, you'll be only limiting yourself. A good old
poem can hack your brain! give it root! ;)

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html) [2]
[http://berrocal.net](http://berrocal.net) [3]
[http://stemtosteam.org/](http://stemtosteam.org/)

~~~
Shorel
I love anything related to art and humanities, I play beginner's go, read all
the science fiction I can find, but coding is the thing that gives me food and
always has.

It was an obvious decision to study computer science, and I guess I am not the
only one.

BTW, I envy those toys you had.

~~~
lyricalpolymath
I myself often thought that If I went back I'd choose CS. It's a good almost
all round discipline.

some of the "toys"/sculptures can be purchased. check the catalogue on link
nº2 Since we know the educational value we are looking into making cheaper
plastic versions for kids to handle. The artist himself wanted to them in
plastic but didn't have the resources when he designed them in the 60-70's

------
stuaxo
It is unsurprising given how we put so much emphasis on learning for the job
market, as opposed to learning for its own sake

------
DanielBMarkham
_“College is increasingly being defined narrowly as job preparation, not as
something designed to educate the whole person,”_

The author keeps making this point over and over again, so sure, I'll bite.

First, I'm a huge fan of a classic liberal education. It truly enriches life,
and so much of that kind of an education is literally priceless.

Having said that, colleges are only ending up exactly where they wanted to go:
at the bank. If colleges keep charging more and more money, it's perfectly
reasonable for the people paying for and loaning the money (not to mention the
poor saps going into debt for most of their life) to ask themselves "Am I
getting something for this money where I know the money will be replaced one
day?" Because money, you know, doesn't grow on trees.

It's one thing to be independently wealthy or a trust fund kid and take ten
years of ancient Greek pottery. It's another to have mom and dad mortgage the
house for it. And while a classic liberal education can't be replaced and is
priceless to have, lots of things in life can't be replaced and are priceless
to have. Life is full of things that we don't put price tags on. But that
doesn't mean they don't cost anything.

Colleges are pricing themselves out of the market. Humanities are the first to
go. Our system of higher education needs rethinking and refactoring. There's a
huge pivot coming, whether these institutions are ready for it or not. And
while that might not be such a good thing for overstaffed humanities
departments, that's a great thing for people wanting to make their lives
better.

