The humanities and social sciences are failing. Their popularity in the US has been waning in recent years, as many students enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to seek skills directly applicable to their careers, but the last few months have exposed a deeper weakness: The humanities and social sciences are no longer training students to be critical thinkers.
Not only does this failure create serious challenges for our culture and democracy. It also leaves students less able to manage a changing economy.
In the last decade, humanities enrollment has fallen 17 percent, as surveys show that more US citizens now question the value of a college education: In 2015, 57 percent had a great deal or a lot of confidence in the US system of higher education, and now only 36 percent do. There is less desire among taxpayers to finance the humanities. West Virginia University is making drastic cuts to some of its humanities departments. North Carolina will no longer fund distinguished professorships at public universities in non-STEM fields.
Illustration: Louise Ting
It is not surprising that many students are flocking to classes in STEM. The primary reason, if you ask students, is that they want to major in subjects that can get them good jobs. Reading great books, learning history and debating philosophy do not appear relevant to this goal.
However, perhaps students feel this way because the arts are not doing what traditionally made them valuable: teaching people to how to think.
Critical thinking has never been more important. A changing economy offers no guarantees. Just a few years ago, learning to code seemed to offer stability. Now artificial intelligence (AI) can write code, but the ability to think analytically, reason well and communicate clearly with a wide range of people — even those you disagree with — would remain invaluable.
This is not the first time the economy has been rapidly transformed. Arguably, modern liberalism can be credited for the tremendous rise in wealth and living standards that came from the last major transition, from agriculture to industry. Economic historian Deirdre McCloskey said that it is no coincidence 18th century Europe was both the center of liberal thought and the birthplace of industrialization.
What made this place and time exceptional was a pervasive belief in the individual and the ability of anyone, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, to become their best self, she said.
These ideas might have come from academia — especially in Scotland, where I went to university — but they radiated through society. They helped bring about universal education and an atmosphere in which ideas could be freely debated. This kind of culture has economic value, too: It enables the discovery of new things and building on the last thing.
After all, a lot of countries had engineers and mathematicians in the 18th century. Europe’s liberal outlook, and the intellectual openness promoted by its universities, helped create the conditions for exponential growth in wealth and living standards. Dogma drags down curiosity, innovation and growth.
Lately, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Clive Crook has said, many in the humanities have rejected notions of openness and free inquiry crucial to the university. Instead of teaching liberal principles, they emphasize a hierarchy of oppression and define people based on immutable characteristics. Such a reductive and ahistorical view of the world increases skepticism of academia in general and the humanities in particular.
The events of Oct. 7 and its aftermath further exposed the intellectual inadequacy of the oppressor-victim approach. Reasonable people can disagree on many aspects of this long and complex conflict. Yet in the humanities, which ought to be a helpful guide to the situation, too many academics have enabled a cartoonish version of history. Some of the most egregious “open letters” about the Israel-Hamas war, for example, have come from academics in humanities and social sciences. The more balanced letters tend to be signed by professors in STEM, business and economics.
US universities have always been different than their overseas counterparts: Rather than study just one subject, such as law or philosophy, many US students receive a four-year undergraduate liberal arts education, including philosophy, history and literature in addition to the sciences. Still, it is not too much of a stretch to say that, in the 20th century, US universities played a similar role to Europe’s in the 18th century.
However, here in the 21st century — as the economy undergoes a transformation every bit as radical as that of 200 years ago — US universities have lost their way.
That is unfortunate, because educating people in the spirit of liberal principles is more important than ever. If you have a simplistic or reductive view of the world, AI would outthink you, but if you can reason, manage ambiguity and adapt to novel situations and new information, you can use AI to help you navigate and prosper in the changing economy. That is not the only reason US universities should re-establish the spirit of openness and free inquiry, but it is a compelling one.
Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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