In 1990, the most popular major at Tufts was English. By 2023, it was Computer Science. For the class of 1990, 23% of students graduated with a degree in the arts or humanities. Today, that figure is down to 11%. The pursuit of the liberal arts is dwindling at other schools as well. At Harvard College, in 2023, there were nearly as many graduates in Computer Science as in all arts and humanities majors combined. Public colleges, such as Iowa and North Dakota State, have decreased funding for the humanities, while private Lasell University has gone as far as eliminating English and History majors. At the governmental level, the National Science Foundation, the federal organization tasked with supporting science and engineering research, had a $9 billion budget in 2024 compared to the $211 million of its humanities counterpart, the National Endowment for the Humanities.
What explains this decline in interest and funding in the liberal arts, and how far does it extend to Tufts? Are the liberal arts doomed?
For some Tufts students, the depreciation of the liberal arts is due to the career advantages that other fields provide. Alex Violet ’27, a Data Science major, admits that he “value[s] career stuff more,” despite his interest in the liberal arts. For Violet, prioritizing one’s career is expected: “All of my friends, except for…one who’s doing acting back home, are doing business, economics, or STEM.” Another sophomore, Jacob Gerson, an Electrical Engineering major, maintained that financial stability was essential to his career choice, claiming that “engineering is kind of that perfect recipe” to be “economically independent” and have “a nice work-life balance.”
Mike Hollingshead ’27, president of the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, says a liberal arts education provides various benefits but ultimately does not “set you up with the exact hard skills that you need.” At Tufts, he sees more students specializing in “investment banking, consulting, [and] computer science,” having “realiz[ed] the value in these careers.”
The rising costs of higher education may explain the shift away from the liberal arts. Violet reasons that Tufts’ $92,000 annual cost of attendance places “such a big pressure” on students to succeed. The median annual salary for all computer and information technology occupations is $88,240, more than double the median annual wage of all other occupations. Peter Levine, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of Tisch College, said this salary disparity ultimately comes down to “the quant[itative] skills and the coding skills [being] seen as more marketable.”
Levine says the emphasis on careerism in higher education is nothing new since “most American students…have always gone for professional degrees.” When Levine was in school, his peers looked to be doctors and lawyers rather than coders and financial advisors, but the ambition was identical. He further explains that “parents who have economic concerns would understandably be more interested in [careerism]” and see themselves as “invest[ing] in job skills” for their children.
With heightened attention on careerism at Tufts, is the death of the liberal arts imminent? Dean Bárbara Brizuela of the School of Arts and Sciences does not think so. “Employers in different industries across the landscape [would] much rather hire someone with a fine mind, in the sense of a true thinker — someone who is open to being challenged, who understands how to build a strong argument, rather than just having the technical skills,” she explained in an interview with the Tribune.
Professor Levine adds that the skills gained in a liberal arts education “are actually really what pays off in life, in terms of success.” He continued, “A lot of real success in life comes, for example, from being able to write a good email rather than just crunching numbers.” Hollingshead echoed this sentiment: “Critical thinking skills that you build in the liberal arts curriculum are…unmatched.” Levine’s view of the liberal arts’ utility rebuts the common criticism that they cannot be a viable path to financial well-being. Although liberal arts majors earn less money immediately after graduation, the Strada Education Foundation finds they hit “rapid wage growth in their late 30s and early 40s — the fastest among majors.” Kery Murakami of Inside Higher Ed adds that over 40 years, “the return at liberal arts colleges reached $918,000, more than 25 percent higher than the $723,000 median gain at all colleges.”
Why doesn’t funding or student interest reflect the monetary value a liberal arts degree can provide? To Levine, the disconnect may stem from students “misinterpreting what is going to get them ahead.” He cites a misplaced “cultural devaluation of the humanities” as one culprit.
Justifying the liberal arts based on its earning potential misses its broader significance. Levine mentioned the “strong connection between pluralism and diversity and the humanities.” He further argues, “If we were all studying computer science, for instance, we would just have whatever political opinions we already had. [The opinions] wouldn’t get changed.”
This diversity of thought can be directly applicable to one’s own life. According to Dean Brizuela, “When you start having access to different perspectives, different ways of asking questions, [and] different theoretical frameworks, you find different paths, which are beautiful and great.”
In a complex world, the variety of perspectives and skills one gains from studying the liberal arts are necessary to solve substantial problems. Dean Brizuela explains that “the most complex issues that we’re faced with, like climate or health, [are] going to require expertise from a variety of different areas and also from every individual, at least an understanding of what are the kinds of questions and what are the kinds of approaches that might help.” Professor Levine expands upon this idea: “the world’s going to change so much in [Generation Z’s] working decades that [they] need to be a jack of all trades.” Levine believes that “concrete computer skills you learn now are not going to be relevant in 30 years” due to innovation. Yet, critical thought and evaluation skills that are central to the liberal arts will always be applicable.
The most career-focused undergraduates at Tufts still study a broad liberal arts education, as all majors must fulfill the expansive distribution requirements to graduate. Still, students continue to choose career-oriented majors, and the university invests heavily in STEM infrastructure to support this interest, as demonstrated by the recent investment in the Joyce Cummings Center and Halligan Hall. In a world where a four-year college like Tufts costs nearly $400,000, it is no wonder that students are incentivized by their economic self-interest. In the face of market volatility, the liberal arts curriculum persists as the most durable basis for an education. With the recent proliferation of AI, many Computer Science graduates find themselves facing a hyper-competitive job market — their unemployment rate is 7.8% as opposed to a 4.9% unemployment rate among liberal arts graduates. The wide scope of a liberal arts education offers versatility in career pivots — expected or unexpected. While a humanities major would find it difficult to transition to a role as a software engineer, a software engineer with a broad foundation across disciplines could more easily become a tech consultant, for instance. The desirability of certain skills in the job market may change, but those inculcated via a liberal arts education are perennial.