Among the humanities disciplines, English departments had the largest number of graduate students enrolled in their programs in fall 2023 (21,570), followed by departments in history (15,070), communication (13,610), and LOTE (11,010). The medium-size disciplines (anthropology, philosophy, art history, religion, and linguistics) had 3,000–7,000 graduate students. The smallest disciplines (classical studies, American studies, musicology, race/ethnic studies, and women’s/gender studies) had 500–1,200 graduate students in their programs.

When measured by the median number of graduate students per department, however, the relative sizes of disciplines are rather different (Figure 15). Communication had the largest median number of graduate students per department (40). English and anthropology were the only other disciplines with medians above 30, while history, linguistics, and philosophy had 26. Musicology departments had the smallest median number of graduate students (8).

Using the median number of student enrollments in fall 2023 graduate courses as a measure of size yields a somewhat similar distribution. The enrollment count was likely lower than the total number of students earning graduate-level course credits because students in independent studies, practicums, or writing a thesis or dissertation were not included in the numbers. Communication and American studies were the only disciplines where the median number of graduate course enrollments were (slightly) lower than the median numbers of graduate students in the program, while philosophy was the only discipline where median enrollments were substantially higher (more than double) than the median number of graduate students. Philosophy also had the highest median number of graduate course enrollments (60), modestly above the median for English (57). Most of the other disciplines had median course enrollments that ranged from 30 to 50.

The counts of graduate students do not distinguish between doctoral students and those working toward master’s or other advanced degrees, but the survey did ask about the number of doctoral students starting in their programs. Communication and En­glish had the largest average number of new doctor­al students per program (estimated as slightly over 10). The averages for the oth­er PhD programs ranged from 3 in American studies to 7 in linguistics. The four large disciplines (English, history, communication, and LOTE) each had approximately 1,000 or more new doctoral students in fall 2023, while five other disciplines (anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, art history, and religion) had added 300–720 new doctoral students. The remaining disciplines each added 250 or fewer students.

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