A new report from the Humanities Indicators project at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences has examined trends in humanities degree completion at historically Black colleges and universities over the past 25 years.
In 2022, HBCUs awarded 2,907 bachelor’s degrees in humanities fields. This was a 15 percent decrease from the recent high of 3,434 degrees awarded in 2014. Notably, this is a significantly greater decrease than the 2.5 percent decline in all degrees awarded by HBCUs over the same time period.
Most of the humanities degrees awarded by HBCUs in 2022 were within the “liberal studies” discipline, with concentrations in African American studies, cultural studies, or prelaw. The number of liberal studies/general humanities bachelor’s degrees earned at HBCUs more than tripled from 347 in 1997 to 1,136 in 2022. The amount of communications degrees awarded by HBCUs also grew, rising from 454 in 1997 to 947 in 2022. Conversely, nearly every other humanities discipline experienced declines in the number of degrees completed at HBCUs, with the sharpest drops found in English language and literature and history.
In 1997, humanities degrees represented 14.3 percent of all degrees awarded at non-HBCUS and 8.1 percent of all degrees awarded at HBCUs. Today, these shares have converged, with humanities disciplines representing 8.8 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded at both types of institutions.
In 2022, historically underrepresented students earned 89 percent of all HBCU bachelor’s degrees in humanities, up 2 percentage points from their share in 1997. At non-HBCUs, historically underrepresented students earned 36 percent of humanities bachelor’s degrees in 2022, a notable 19 percent increase over the same time period.
Currently, there are not many HBCUs that award master’s degrees and doctorates in humanities fields, making it difficult to determine trends in degree attainment. Nevertheless, HBCUs have seen modest growth in this area. In 1997, HBCUs awarded 133 master’s degrees in humanities fields. This peaked in 2012 at 180 degrees and declined to 140 degrees in 2022. For doctoral degrees, HBCUs awarded 20 humanities doctorates in 1997, peaking at 43 doctorates in 2015, and dropping to 21 doctorates in 2022.