At Stanford University, nearly 45 percent of faculty members for undergraduates are in humanities departments -- but fewer and fewer students are taking those classes. Fewer than 18 percent of undergraduate applicants have a primary interest in the humanities. Schools nationally are seeing more students pick pre-professional majors that they see as having a more direct route to a job after college. Only about 7 percent of undergraduates major in the humanities nationally. That's about half as many as did in the 1970s. We discuss the values of a humanities education and what the downward trend means for schools and society.
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