Debt and Doctoral Study in the Humanities
- Approximately two-thirds of new humanities and arts Ph.D.’s carried no or minimal debt out of their doctoral studies in 2020 (Indicator II-31a). New behavioral/social sciences Ph.D.’s were similar in this respect, with 63% of these graduates reporting $10,000 or less in graduate education debt. Graduates in other STEM fields were much more likely to emerge from their programs with a modest debt level. Nearly 90% of new engineering, mathematics/computer sciences, and physical/earth sciences Ph.D.’s reported graduate education debt of $10,000 or less. And these fields were much less likely than their counterparts in the humanities and arts to carry particularly heavy debt loads, with under 5% of their graduates reporting more than $50,000 in graduate education debt, in contrast with 18% of humanities and arts graduates.
- In 2020, the percentage of new humanities and arts Ph.D.’s with no debt related to their graduate education was similar to what it had been in 2004, 57.5% (Indicator II-31b). The share of humanities Ph.D.’s completing the degree without debt fell to a low of 48% in 2012 but then slowly rose back to its original level. Most other fields saw at least a slight increase in the percentage of new Ph.D.’s without graduate education debt. The exception was education, which saw the share of new Ph.D.’s with no graduate education debt fall from 62% to 47%.
- Throughout the 2004–2020 time period, humanities and arts Ph.D.’s were slightly more likely to emerge from their doctoral studies without graduate debt than were their counterparts in the behavioral and social sciences, but they were substantially less likely to be debt-free than natural science and engineering Ph.D.’s.
- From 2015 to 2020, the distribution of graduate debt in every academic field drifted toward the extremes, with increases in both the share of those with no debt and the share with debt of more than $90,000 (Indicator II-31c). In the case of humanities and arts Ph.D.’s, the share with no debt grew by 8 percentage points from 2015 to 2020, while those with graduate debt over $90,000 was the only other debt category where growth occurred, with an increase of 2.5 percentage points (from a much lower baseline than the “no debt” category).
- Averaging across the 2015–2020 time period, 55% of American Indian/Alaska Native and Black/African American and students receiving a Ph.D. in the humanities or arts left their doctoral programs with more than $30,000 in graduate education debt, a markedly larger share than for other racial/ethnic groups (Indicator II-31d). The humanities and arts were like graduate education as a whole with respect to the indebtedness of Black Ph.D.’s, but American Indian/Alaska Native Ph.D.’s in the humanities and arts were considerably more likely to be carrying substantial debt than Indigenous Ph.D.’s generally.
* Life sciences includes agricultural sciences and natural resources; biological and biomedical sciences; and health sciences.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2020 (Data Tables), Table 38, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/ (accessed 2/15/2022). Data presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
The data on which this indicator is based are collected as part of the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates, a national census of recently graduated doctorate recipients.
This indicator looks only at graduate study debt, although the SED also collects data on debt from undergraduate study.
* Life sciences includes agricultural sciences and natural resources; biological and biomedical sciences; and health sciences.
** Included mathematics and computer science in 2004.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities (Data Tables; years 2014, 2015, and 2020), Table 39, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/ (accessed 2/15/2022). Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
The data on which this indicator is based are collected as part of the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates, a national census of recently graduated doctorate recipients.
This indicator looks only at graduate study debt, although the SED also collects data on debt from undergraduate study.
* Life sciences includes agricultural sciences and natural resources; biological and biomedical sciences; and health sciences.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2020 (Data Tables), Table 39, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/ (accessed 2/15/2022). Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
The data on which this indicator is based are collected as part of the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates, a national census of recently graduated doctorate recipients.
This indicator looks only at graduate study debt, although the SED also collects data on debt from undergraduate study.
* Includes only those new Ph.D.’s who are US citizens or permanent residents.
Source: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2020 (Data Tables), Table 41, https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/ (accessed 2/15/2022). Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
The data on which this indicator is based are collected as part of the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates, a national census of recently graduated doctorate recipients.
This indicator looks only at graduate study debt, although the SED also collects data on debt from undergraduate study.
