Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table.
Is it the end of an era for liberal arts?
Across the globe even Harvard is shutting down humanity's programs.
Are we prioritizing STEM and tech at the expense of culture, philosophy, and history?
Let's dive into this and what it means for education and society, and if there's still room for Aristotle in a world of AI.
And from unbelievably unforgettable tunes to life's little joys, we're spilling all the feels in Round Table's happy place.
Join us for your weekly dose of sunshine.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Round Table.
I'm He Young. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun, first on today's show.
Globally, humanities and liberal arts degrees have been under the survival spotlight since the 2008 financial downturn, but things seem to have taken another grim turn.
In September 2024, Harvard University's flagship undergraduate liberal arts program reportedly canceled over 30 fall classes across 20 -plus departments, history and literature for the brunt, losing six courses after the departure of five lecturers.
Is this the latest chapter in the decline of the humanities or a sign of deeper shifts in academia and even our global economy?
So guys, how widespread is the closure of liberal arts courses or even majors in higher education around the world?
So the decline in humanities education or majors seems not limited to Harvard and appear to be a global trend in the United States.
Many universities like Missouri Western State University and West Virginia University have cut back on liberal arts programs, including English history, philosophy, political science, sociology and other humanities majors.
Also in the UK, the University of Kent plans to gradually phase out six disciplines, including art history and anthropology.
In Australia, policies have led to a significant increase in tuition fees for humanities programs, aiming to reduce the enrollment numbers.
And also in China, while the declining liberal arts majors is not as pronounced as in other countries, there are still signs of it or we have a lot of discussions on it.
Actually, I remember we previously discussed how a well -known tutoring teacher in China made a critical comment about the drop prospects of humanities majors, which sparked a lot of debate and we discussed on it.
In Australia, going back to your point about Australia, it was reported by the Australian Financial Review in 2024 that the university sector, it's going to be an expensive milestone this year in 2025 because they implemented policies that make humanities degrees significantly more expensive.
And this is going to further discourage enrollment.
More specifically, tuition fees for subjects like science or health care or agriculture or mathematics, they've been reduced by 20 percent to 62 percent.
That's a massive reduction.
But the humanities courses for them for those courses or for their degrees, they've skyrocketed by 113 percent.
That is so interesting.
I know this is only sort of one slice of this big topic that we will discuss, but I can't help but wonder if we can stick with this just a tiny bit.
What they're doing in Australia or at least in this university, does it sound like in the future they're reserving humanity subjects for these ultra -rich?
I don't think that's the goal.
That might be the result, but I don't know if that's the goal.
It seems like the courses that students will pursue would be more quote unquote job ready courses.
And that's why they're making them more affordable.
To put that in a context for you, I gave you the percentages.
But just to put that in a context, those job ready courses, Australian students will pay between 3700 and 7700 dollars per year, Australian dollars.
But if you want to complete a degree in the humanities, it could cost you around 45000 Australian dollars.
That is a massive, massive price difference.
And to me, just on the surface, what that says is that for perhaps lower income families, if they have students or their kids, parents who have kids who are interested in studying the humanities, it might not be financially viable for them to do that.
Because it's going to be cheaper to get a science degree than it is to study something in the liberal arts.
Which stereotypically, you know, a lot of students that are studying liberal arts and they are perceived as a little bit vulnerable, more vulnerable than people who study computer science and subjects like that.
And they're even paying more for choosing this major.
So that is the point that this is kind of a global trend or people are having even stronger perception that, OK, more people are choosing science majors.
Well, what they're doing in Australia is definitely still a bit of an outlier in the sense of enrollment policies.
But it is really interesting that it has been for a few years as we're seeing this sort of like a steady trend or at least in the media and on social media as well.
A lot of the discussion has been revolving around, oh, humanities have seen far better days and it's on a downward curve as such.
And well, you know, looking back for the last couple of decades, what do you see as the primary reasons driving this curve?
It depends perhaps on which country or culture you're looking at.
But if we're just speaking globally, it seems that society is now seeking practical skills that the world needs in terms of employment.
The New York Times reported that the state auditor of Mississippi, for example, released an eight page report in 2023 suggesting that the state of Mississippi, that's a state in America, should invest more in college degree programs that could, quote, improve the value they provide to both taxpayers
and graduates. And the state auditor, Shad White, told the New York Times that this means that the state education funds should, quote, focus more on engineering and business programs and less on liberal arts majors like anthropology, women's studies and German language and literature.
He got, Shad White got very specific naming programs there.
I'm not sure why those were singled out, but the overall consensus seems to be that they want to invest more in programs that will more ready students for the job market.
And perhaps they're viewing these liberal arts programs as a waste of time and money, which is a very harsh thing to say.
But that's not my opinion.
That seems to be a shared opinion.
Yeah, if we're just like calming down and just so harshly.
Yeah. Like talking about this, it's probably because this is how the social development or science or technology develops, because we are seeing that the rise of artificial intelligence and automation in recent years has sparked concerns about the future job markets.
And that is how it is promising students to shift towards fields perceived to be less vulnerable to technological disruption, such as STEM disciplines, which is science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
You're right. I mean, this is not a simple question with a simple answer.
There's a lot going on here.
And another factor is that education is getting more expensive.
Student debt is getting more expensive as well.
And this is leading students and then their families, their parents, when they have these discussions about what they should study at university, they are prioritizing majors that are perceived to be a door to a high paying job.
So it does make sense.
You know, we're living in the world of AI now and we're seeing that and we talk about it and it's in the news all the time about which jobs are going to disappear.
And supporters say, yes, some will disappear, but there will be a whole new world of job opportunities, just different types of jobs.
So of course, young students and their parents are hearing that news, watching that news, and they're making their decisions to the best of their ability.
And it is a really complex issue, actually.
Steve, you did mention about the student debt situation in the U .S.
and some Western countries.
Well, actually, we need to be specific.
It's the U .S. and to a certain degree, the U .K.
Canada too. Canada as well.
And in Europe, because university fees are often covered by the government.
So you don't really spend much to go to university and that's a different story.
But if you're in the U .S.
and nowadays in 2025, if you go to a nice college, you pay tuition up to some.
It's pretty standard to pay like 70 ,000 U .S.
dollars for one year.
And that's more than 500 ,000 yuan, just in tuition fees, one year.
So if you're paying that amount of money, then of course you should be expecting definitely securing a job and definitely getting something super worthy out of that money in that time.
And in China, our tuition fees have been rising, but it is so much cheaper if you compare to the U .S.
and therefore there is less of this outcry of my money's worth.
But there is definitely a huge discussion about what is the role of higher education and should it be responsible to secure me a job after I spend four years in the ivory tower, as some people feel.
There is a perceived lack of career relevance with these courses.
And the New Yorker, they reported on a 2018 survey, they did this with 826 students from Arizona State University, and they received some astonishing results.
222 of the students asked thought that biology was a humanity major, while the majority of the students were unclear on what the humanities were and which careers humanities led to, the study of humanities.
This is a problem. If the students are unaware of what the humanities are just in general, and therefore if they're not familiar with what they are, that means they're not familiar with what career opportunities could lie from studying related courses over the course of four years, then that would lead
to a decrease in enrollment in such classes as well.
Never mind the classes being cut, just interest in enrolling in those classes.
That has something to do with the education system because here in China, back then, when you're in high school, you will be divided into two categories you will like to choose, which is science and liberal arts.
And then maybe in that period of time, students may have a better understanding on which kind of direction that I would like to go.
And in this case, maybe more student may have a better understanding on whether biology is humanities or something like that.
Maybe we should define this a little bit, right?
If you're a humanities student, then you're studying things like art history or English literature or history in general or anthropology or sociology, philosophy, foreign languages, gender studies, political science, theology, all of those things.
It's basically a Bachelor of the Arts degree.
And if you're studying going the other route, the STEM topic, the subjects which have been all the rage for recent years, well, that would be science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
And actually, if you live in China, especially for, well, for many years, I would think maybe prior to the 2000s, there was this golden tagline that so many teachers, and parents used to trumpet all the time, something along those lines.
And that's basically if you have a grasp of the STEM subjects, then it's guaranteed a great future for you.
So, but for some years in China, I think we heard less of that.
But now, maybe in the current situation as well as in the near future, this tagline is making a comeback in some sense.
And maybe I think it's reflecting the general picture of the economy, of how society develops.
And some of these – because it's got to be some of these deeper forces that are shaping how people view what is – essentially, you're talking about building up your career, how to make money, how to make a living in the future, right?
Yeah. And there also seems to be just a general lack of interest from students as well.
Again, we can use Harvard as an example.
In 2022, only 7 % of incoming freshmen plan to pursue humanities degrees.
Now, if you compare that to the 1970s, which is many decades ago, 30 % of incoming freshmen plan to pursue humanities degrees.
So, the number is obviously significantly less.
And 7 % is dangerously close to 0%, in my opinion.
So, there seems to be the fact too that students just don't have the same level of interest as they once did.
And I think that is why a lot of universities are optimizing their structure of their educational offerings.
Some universities, in an effort to structurally optimize their educational offerings, have phased out humanities programs that are seen as outdated and have embraced more competitive STEM disciplines.
Because I saw an example is that in an American university, they will do a kind of a survey before you choose the major.
And to see the percentage of people choosing STEM subjects or liberal arts subjects.
And then they will, according to the survey, and then to optimize the structure.
Yeah. You talk about programs being outdated.
I found this. This is from the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
And it said that at the beginning of our modern concept of what the humanities actually means, that began in 1936 and 1937 at Columbia University.
At that time, freshmen were required to take a mandatory program, including a reading list of literary, philosophical, and religious texts beginning with Homer.
So the point here is that back in the 1930s at Columbia University, when the concept of the humanities kind of first came to be, academically speaking, there, it's changed over the decades and what it means.
And when you talk about outdated programs for the liberal arts to survive, perhaps that's one of the things that's needed, is to update what those programs are and what the students can learn in those programs.
What you just said, I'm sorry you lost me at Homer.
I think maybe this is...
Not Simpson, by the way.
Not Maggie. Anyhow.
So I suspect that this is something to do with our...
Well, you talk about the lack of interest and all of this stuff.
It coincides with how we see the world in the sense that in a rapidly changing world, increasingly tech driven, this might indicate a short term focus on practical skills over long term intellectual and cultural development.
And this could reveal an assumption that the humanities are less relevant in addressing pressing global challenges, real life challenges that we experience in society.
Though many would argue that the opposite is true, that humanities foster the empathy, ethics, and historical perspective needed to navigate complex societal issues that we experience every day.
But I wonder if people are willing to go deeper to see this and still see that relevance.
I was looking at an editorial piece from a Canadian writer who writes on education, and this is what he had to say.
It seems that universities or institutions, educational institutions, are no longer a place where learning is done for the sake of learning.
They are now training centers for the professional world.
And now degrees from said institutions are seen as little more than a necessary line on a resume, and majors are selected based on their return on investment.
I could not agree with that statement more.
If we think about a university as a place where we can grow as individuals and study the things that we're passionate about as opposed to the things that we think will secure us a job in the future, well, that's kind of the role of an educational institution at that level.
But I agree with what the writer said in that we don't see them like that anymore.
It's a line on a resume.
If you don't go to university, and that's a whole other topic, then your chances of, quote unquote, succeeding in society decrease, because people will ask, what?
You didn't go to university.
But what is the goal?
What's the goal? What are they for now?
And to say that they're there so that you can put it on a resume to secure a job, we have to put the word hopefully secure a job.
In that sentence as well, because that's not even guaranteed.
So this is this is sad news, in my opinion, the decline of the study of the humanities and universities.
Yeah, we're talking about it.
And it seems to be a kind of a societal phenomenon.
It is not something that like only one university or it's only like a bunch of people can change.
And I think that is how these subjects or these majors or the managers are trying to deal with it.
And they are developing a more and more interdisciplinary majors or in this kind of fields.
The rise of interdisciplinary fields like digital humanities, medical humanities, environmental humanities.
Updating what it is that they're studying, right.
To integrating humanities and STEMs or these computer science majors together.
Actually, many humanities majors continue to exist, I would say, when we're talking about it.
It's not canceled. But by combining with other fields of study, I think we talked about it in 2024.
A Chinese university, Fudan University successfully obtained approval for four double degree interdisciplinary talent development programs.
And they are like integration of four majors, English, Russian translation, German with computer science and technology, which means like English and computer science technology.
So these things are the integration and innovation between new humanities and new engineering disciplines.
Stanford University has a digital humanities degree as well.
So back to the point of updating what that degree looks like.
This seems to be a necessary and interesting move at the same time for students as well.
Yes, absolutely. And also if you look at the universities in Europe, for example, in Germany and France and Nordic countries, their humanities subjects remain.
And they're still accepting a lot of international students as well.
And in the countries and regions that I just mentioned just now.
Oh, actually, I would include Japan in there as well, and to a certain extent, China as well.
When there is a national educational system that relies heavily on public funding and then, you know, your cultural and educational policies can support these humanities subjects a bit more, liberal arts subjects a bit more and longer.
And that could answer why in these regions you don't see the significant decline in humanity degrees.
And to a certain extent, the way I look at it is maybe this is, you know, short term vision or long term vision to a certain extent, because with the humanities subjects, they are not going to rake in big financial returns soon.
And there's maybe to some extent even a lesser possibility of having rich alumni who come back to donate and contribute to the endowment of these universities.
But like you guys both have demonstrated, there's definitely still worth to these subjects.
One hundred percent.
And the soft skills are still needed by companies, things like communication and critical thinking and problem solving and all of these things that you can learn with the acquisition of a humanities degree.
And many colleges, they are infusing soft skills into STEM courses as well.
There's a professor of history.
His name is Steven Mintz, the University of Texas at Austin.
And he's said that the different institutions are looking at multiple ways to do this by promoting active learning and inquiry and problem team and project based learning.
They want to or they are integrating moral reasoning and community based learning and community service into the curriculum of STEM courses as well.
So maybe finding about instead of just a clear black and white between the STEM and the humanities, a bit of a blurring of the lines it seems is taking place.
And that's got to be considered a good thing.
I think so too. And the rise and decline of humanities subjects are closely tied to economic conditions, reflecting broader societal priorities.
However, the humanities long term relevance depends on recognizing their value and not just in economic terms.
Ultimately, this trend of humanities closures in universities invites reflection on the kind of future we're building and whether economic utility should overshadow the deeper intangible benefits of understanding history, culture and the human experience.
