Introduction

As part of the preparatory work for a survey of humanities departments in the United States, Humanities Indicators staff examined trends in humanities degree completion at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).1 Among the findings are two particularly significant developments:

1. While bachelor’s degree completions in the humanities continued to fall nationally, the decline was more gradual and appears to have largely plateaued at HBCUs (discounting a slight drop in 2022 that was also seen in several nonhumanities fields).
2. In the past, HBCUs awarded a relatively small share of their degrees in the humanities; as of 2022, though, HBCUs and all other institutions had converged in the share of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the field.

Since the 19th century, HBCUs have played a vital role in opening pathways to higher education that would otherwise have been closed to Black students and have served as important cultural centers and resources for their communities. However, these institutions have traditionally awarded most of their degrees in vocational subjects, with only a comparatively small share of their degrees going to the humanities.2

Endnotes

• 1

  For more on the Humanities Departmental Survey, visit https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/humanities-higher-education-surveys. Findings from the most recent round of the survey will be available in April 2025.

• 2

  For more on the history of HBCUs, see Roger L. Geiger, The History of Higher Education: Learning and Culture from the Founding to World War II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 467–78; and Jelani Favors, Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019).