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The American Historical Association has recently released a report showing that the number of history majors graduating from American institutions has been plummeting. From 2011 to 2017 the number history of majors has dropped by 1/3. At no time since at least the 1950s have history majors made up a smaller share of the graduating class.
Yet over the same time period there has been a flourishing of novel venues for popular history. Podcasts, websites, and places like this subreddit have channeled incredible amounts of enthusiasm towards the study of history.
What accounts for this? Is academic history simply moribund? What can history as an academic discipline do to regain students' interest?
What can history as an academic discipline do to regain students' interest?
Offer a path to actual, well-paying jobs. College in 2018 is too expensive to get a degree just because you like the subject, or just for the sake of having a degree.
As a history major myself, I think history programs must (perhaps ironically) embrace the future to stay relevant. There are few clear career paths you can take with a history degree and, more importantly, there are few concrete skills that you learn. If you're indebting yourself to go through school, there has to be an assurance of a decent salary and career afterwards.
I believe that history programs should do more with technology or (like sociology) incorporate statistics and data analytics into the curriculum in order to give a broader skillset to graduates and another dimension of analysis and understanding. They could also have more varied projects and assignments that incorporate technology such as Excel, Tableau, or similar softwares while also weaving in current events and changes around the world i.e actively applying historical knowledge in order to better understand modern realities.
The traditional history degree is certainly not useless, it teaches writing, research, analysis, and critical thinking skills; however it would be much more useful and attractive to potential students if concrete skills which are in demand in the modern world were taught. Obviously I can only speak for my own experiences in my university's program, but these are things that I would have liked. Less focus on traditional research papers and more focus on innovative and creative projects that equip students for a wider variety of employment opportunities.
Out of my high school graduating class of 77, I only know of one who is currently planning to study history. Even then, I think he hopes he can transfer majors into business school. Of course, plans will certainly change over the next four years and many of my classmates enrolled into general arts programs, so perhaps they will end up in history in the end.
One of the pieces of advice our university counsellors would tell us is to not only pick a degree that will interest you, but one that will have job prospects. We would do activities matching possible degrees with possible jobs to help us narrow down our interests. Unfortunately, I do not think many students are aware of what job prospects they have with a history major, thinking that job prospects are poor. That is certainly what other classmates told my friend who wants to major in history. They think he'll either end up as a teacher or as an academic.
I think there's a difference between having an interest in a subject and wanting to study it for your degree.
Is it a coincidence that the decline comes in the period AskHistorians has been active? I think not...
While it would be nice (?) to believe that we've supplemented the societal need to learn about history, I suspect there's more at play. I don't think the humanities have always made the best case for employability, which is clearly a concern given just how expensive a university education tends to be across contexts. I think it's shortsighted to prioritise STEM subjects so heavily, given that creativity is basically the only advantage we have over robots going forward. History is I think among the most practical of the humanities in that regard - being creative, but requiring substantiation. Ultimately though the case needs to be made better in dollar terms - I think a lot of people would take a moderate pay cut compared to a software engineer so long as it was clear that history leads to decent career options down the line, even if there isn't the same false certainty that surrounds an accounting degree.
As someone who is EXTREMELY passionate about history, currently majoring in history, and considering leaving school at the moment: here's my take. (Sorry if this comes off a little bit ranty but this is a thing that infuriates me to no end)
At least where I am, history departments are CONSTANTLY being cut. Professors are retiring and the schools aren't hiring anyone to replace them. In my situation, I really love learning about ancient and medieval history and became a history major with the intention on focusing on these time periods. And of course I was disappointed when I actually got to college and found that the only history classes being offered were on US History, WW2, and some modern European history. Those are all great topics to learn about and very important things to study, but it just blows my mind that we have an entire WORLD of history and yet everything seems to focus on the same few time periods/areas of history. I've spent countless days begging in the offices of the few professors that did teach the periods of history I wanted to focus in to teach me more. It's just really discouraging when you actively want to be learning and no one will teach you because the department is so underfunded. As much passion as I have about learning history, it feels pointless to sit here and get a degree in it while only taking two classes on the thing I really came here to learn.
TLDR: History departments are underfunded and only teach classes on the same few topics with little to no variation.
/u/sunagainstgold wrote a great post about why you shouldn't get a PHD in history a few months ago. I know it's not the same as majoring in History, but she has some excellent points that lend to this discussion.
People need to know there are jobs out there that pay a respectable salary. I graduated with a history degree during the great recession and I felt pretty hopeless. Went back to school and became an accountant. I don't have any regrets, my degree has given a bigger understanding of the world and exposure to many historical subjects. I enjoy learning about something new every day. And I feel I can see things through a different lense than a lot of my peers. But yeah, more promotion of tangible material benefits of a degree in history is needed. We need to get rid of the "so...you wanna teach?" stereotype.
If I may be an optimistic cynic (for lack of a better word) for a moment, if people who were picking history for reasons of employability are no longer doing so, there’s a part of me that genuinely thinks that I’m glad to see them go. IMO it is a rather disturbing trend to see education as primarily preparation for employment. We shouldn’t study history because it will give us a job. We should do it because it enriches us as people. The employability angle is in my view the wrong one to take, and I think we should be appealing to higher concerns, as important as economic security is.