A black-clad figure stands hunched in the middle of a boarding school classroom. He looks conspiratorially around at the gaggle of young men — his students — huddling around him, and delivers one of my favorite lines in television: “[M]edicine, law, business, engineering; these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.”
This scene is from the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society.” In it, the beloved English teacher Mr. Keating attempts to convince a room of careeristic boarding school kids of the value of the Humanities.
At first, these children find Mr. Keating ridiculous and delusional — they were raised by the baby boomer “success is everything in life” crowd. Neil Perry, our idealistic main character, is strongly pushed by his father to become a doctor, even as he secretly desires to become an actor. Throughout the film, Neil and his friends learn, with the help of Mr. Keating, the value of pursuing what one “stays alive for” rather than chasing success.
Mr. Keating, to me an inspirational figure who encouraged my interest in the humanities, would face a cold reception at Alpharetta High School, where I attend school.
Enrollment in higher-level History and English classes and in humanities extracurriculars, such as clubs, is declining. Alpharetta students seem increasingly disinterested in the humanities — but it’s not just my high school.
The humanities have been in decline nationwide since the 2010s. Today, American students see college as an economic investment, not an opportunity for personal growth. According to Chantilly News, STEM- and business-oriented majors are displacing the humanities nationwide, and they are under assault from policymakers and administrators who face pressure to slim budgets and remove “woke” curricula.
Scholars fear, with good reason, that we may lose some of our actual humanity in our efforts to downsize the humanities.
Humanities In Winter
Across the nation, interest in the humanities is dropping rapidly.
In 2020, the number of conferred Humanities degrees fell below 200,000, according to a report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — a historic low not seen since 2002. The same report finds that humanities degrees conferred have also plummeted by 24% and continue to decline. The Modern Language Association, in its preliminary report on its Job Information List, reported a steady decrease in available job listings for the sixth year in a row in 2018.
Conversely, STEM has fared much better: in 2020, the Computer and Information Sciences major increased by 245% from the previous year, a change that mirrors the perceived shift in favor of STEM degrees and careers in the job market.
STEM is beginning to smother the humanities. The Dean of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Tyrus Miller, notes that to compensate for the financial crisis, tuition increased sharply in the University of California system. He identifies a mindset that rising college freshmen (and their parents) have ubiquitously adopted — the idea that college is an “investment.”
“The argument about return on investment for parents or for the students themselves paying for their college education started to really figure into people’s decisions…” Dr. Miller says. “There was the perception — I think it’s probably not a completely accurate perception — that certain fields had immediate job prospects… and that humanities and certain other areas were less practical.”
This sentiment is corroborated by humanities-inclined students at Alpharetta. Junior and prospective History major Amelia Duerr had this to say: “Most kids at our school care more about STEM than the humanities. I feel as though [STEM is] presented as more beneficial, be it by teachers or parents.”
Attacks on the Humanities
The humanities are fighting on more than one front: they are also under attack from policymakers.
Cuts to programs and grants reflect a broader trend of removing humanities programs nationwide. This October, the White House fired most of the National Council of the Humanities, leaving just four appointees by President Donald Trump, The Washington Post recently reported. The National Council on the Humanities awards grants to projects related to the Humanities, such as museums or art programs.
Because of this program, research grants have been withdrawn across the country, with the few members who remain in the NEH citing an intent to pivot to align with President Trump’s vision for the country. At Stanford, several professors’ grants were rescinded, resulting in the loss of important research initiatives and data.
More locally, Kennesaw State University has axed its Philosophy and Black studies majors due to their “low performance.” The Georgia NAACP has condemned the actions of the university’s leadership.
In Alpharetta, humanities clubs tend to have low membership, while STEM club attendance continues to increase. The school newspaper has around 10 active members. The Alpharetta FBLA — or Future Business Leaders of America — chapter has around 400 members, according to Community Service Manager Trisha Mittal.
Alpharetta’s AP European History class was not offered in the 2025-26 school year due to low interest, even though the minimum to remain on the curriculum is just seven students. “Fewer students seem to be pursuing advanced humanities electives, and there’s a growing emphasis on STEM courses,” says Michael Womack, an AP English teacher at Alpharetta. “Especially with the addition of schools like Innovation Academy just down the street.” Innovation Academy is a competing high school in Alpharetta focused on STEM education.
Losing Our Humanity, Not Just The Humanities
The notion that a humanities degree yields a poor return on investment rests on a purely economic, material perspective on college — one that treats it as an investment rather than an educational endeavor. But college is more than just the degree one earns at the end.
“Whether it be climate change, artificial intelligence, or personalized medicine and health, all of those things are only meaningful insofar as we as human beings individually and collectively make sense of them,” Dr. Miller told me. “And I think the humanities bring the tools to bear on those kinds of questions and help us to make sense [of them].”
As a young girl, I was a reader and obsessed with stories of all kinds. Books like Harry Potter captivated me, and that love for stories later translated into my passion for journalism. Journalism is an exercise in giving voice to the stories that are not apparent on the surface — those that you must dig a klick deeper to find. Without proper care for the humanities, invisible stories like those that I endeavor to find and highlight will never be told.
When we lose the humanities, we lose precious history, our ability to reason logically and critically, our capacity to empathize with others, and, most importantly, our understanding of what makes us human. According to Dr. Miller, “What we study, really, is the process and the history of human meaning-making. We are meaning-making animals.
Miller continued, “I think the humanities are the sciences of meaning, insofar as these things are actually even in our kind of modern and technologically saturated world. People have spiritual beliefs, cultural beliefs, they speak languages, they have existential cares for themselves and for others, they have aesthetic responses to their world, and all of these kinds of things are kind of our making sense of the world that we live in.”
Mr. Keating Was Right
My dream to be a history major seems to be slipping through my fingers, especially after wading through depressing headlines announcing this or that new cut to the humanities. But I find that underneath the quagmire, Mr. Keating was right about the value of the humanities.
Dr. Miller puts it best. “I think the humanities really have thousands of years — if you think about philosophy and literature and art and so forth — thousands of years of experience in making sense of our world,” he said. “And it’s so important to retain those techniques and traditions and to reflect on them and also to shape them so we can respond to the various sorts of things that are coming newly down the pipe at us as human beings.”
The Humanities will remain in winter as long as we let them. But as for me, I plan to keep our humanity alive.
