State of the Humanities 2022: From Graduate Education to the Workforce

Graduate Degrees Conferred in the Humanities as a Share of All Degrees, by Degree Level, 1988–2020

Back to table of contents
Project
Humanities Indicators
 

Graduate Degrees Conferred in the Humanities as a Share of All Degrees, by Degree Level, 1988–2020


Viewed as a percentage of all degrees conferred at each level, the humanities disciplines rose for a time after the late 1980s but then declined from their peak. The humanities’ share of master’s and professional degrees rose as high as 5% in 1997 but fell substantially over the next 23 years (to 3% in 2020). At the doctoral level, the share of humanities degrees rose to 11% in 2000, but by 2020 had declined to just 7% of all degrees awarded.

Despite the fact that from 1988 to 2020 many more master’s than doctoral degrees were earned in the humanities, master’s degrees in the field represented a markedly smaller share of all degrees granted at the corresponding level. (For those interested in a longer view, the Humanities Indicators website offers a time series extending back as far as 1948 for six of the largest humanities disciplines. In all but a few years, the share of graduate degrees awarded to that subset of the field from 1948 to 1987 was substantially higher than the levels now seen for the field as a whole.)2

Project
Humanities Indicators
Previous Section
Graduate Degrees Conferred in the Humanities, by Degree Level, 1988–2020
Next Section
Master’s Degrees Conferred in the Humanities, by Discipline, 1988–2020
Back to table of contents

Endnotes

  • 2Ibid.

    A professional degree is one classified within IPEDS as a professional-practice doctorate, which is defined by the National Center for Education Statistics as a doctor’s degree (requiring at least six academic years to complete, including undergraduate education) that is conferred upon completion of a program providing the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credential, or license required for professional practice; or, for earlier years, a first professional degree. The latter category included ten degree types: Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.); Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.); Law (LL.B. or J.D.); Medicine (M.D.); Optometry (O.D.); Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.); Pharmacy (Pharm.D.); Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.); Theology (M.Div., M.H.L., B.D., or Ordination); and Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M. or V.M.D.).