• In 2022, the share of humanities doctorates completed by students from historically minoritized racial/ethnic groups1 was 20.5%, nearly double the share in 1997 (Indicator II-25f).
• Throughout the 1997–2022 time period, the share of humanities doctorates awarded to students from minoritized groups was at least somewhat smaller than the share of all doctorate degrees awarded to these students. The difference between the humanities field and higher education generally was least pronounced in the last half of the 2000s (less than 10%), but in the decade leading up to 2022 the annual disparity was greater: on average, 17%.
• Among all major academic fields, the humanities had the largest percentage of white permanent residents among doctoral degree recipients in 2022, with 52.3% in this category (Indicator II-25g). The humanities’ share was only slightly larger than the share among those earning degrees in health and medical sciences (51.3%) and education (50.3%), but almost 10 percentage points greater than the share for all fields combined (42.7%).
• The humanities awarded comparatively small shares of doctoral degrees to Asian American students (4%) and African American students (5%) in 2022. The latter was half the percentage among all doctoral degrees in general, and markedly smaller than among doctoral degree recipients from business and education (both more than 21%). Conversely, the percentage of humanities doctorates awarded to Hispanic/Latino degree recipients (8.6%) was larger than the share for all fields combined by almost two percentage points and trailed only education and behavioral/social sciences (where the shares were close to 10%).
• From 1997 to 2022, the share of humanities doctoral degrees awarded to students with temporary visas increased substantially from approximately 15% in 1997 to almost 22% in 2022—the largest share on record (Indicator II-25h).
• Among the minoritized groups for which data are available, Hispanic/Latino students saw the largest increase in share among humanities doctorates completed, increasing from 3.6% in 1997 to 8.6% in 2022 (the highest level yet recorded). The share of African Americans earning doctorates in the humanities also increased, from 3.3% in 1997 to 5.0% in 2022. The latter share was down modestly from the historical peak the year before (5.6%).
• Among the humanities disciplines, cultural, ethnic, and gender studies was the most likely to award an advanced degree to a member of a minoritized racial/ethnic group—and by a wide margin (Indicator II-25i). In 2022, 52.2% of the students receiving doctoral degrees in the discipline were members of a minoritized group. This compares to 26% of general humanities/liberal studies degrees, the type of humanities doctorate awarded to the next largest share of minoritized students.
• The small number of students receiving doctoral degrees in any particular discipline means that relatively modest year-to-year changes in the number of degree completions by members of minoritized racial/ethnic groups can translate into dramatic increases and decreases in share. “Spiky” data of this kind make the identification of trends difficult. Nevertheless, most humanities disciplines were awarding a substantially larger share of doctoral degrees to historically minoritized students in the early 2020s than in the late 1990s, with the percentages in classical studies, English, history, and study of the arts more than doubling.
• Despite the trends described above, the field declined in popularity among minoritized students from the early 2000s to 2022 (Indicator II-25j). The humanities accounted for 8.6% of the doctoral degrees awarded to minoritized students in 1997 and rose to almost 10% in 2002. In subsequent years, however, the humanities’ share shrank, until the field accounted for only 5% of the doctorates awarded to minoritized students in 2022.

Endnotes

• 1

  Includes students who are citizens or permanent residents and self-identify as American Indian/Alaska Native only (non-Hispanic), African American/Black only (non-Hispanic), Asian only (non-Hispanic), Hispanic or Latino (any race), Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander only (non-Hispanic), or two or more races (non-Hispanic). These—along with “White only (non-Hispanic),” “U.S. Nonresident,” and “Unknown” (for students who decline to answer)—are the categories the National Center for Education Statistics requires institutions to use when reporting students’ race/identity. For information on how institutions collect data on race/ethnicity from students and assign them to these categories, see https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/report-your-data/race-ethnicity-collecting-data-for-reporting-purposes.