For years now, experts have been stressing the importance of education in science, technology, engineering and math — the so-called STEM disciplines.
Prospective college students have been told STEM is where the jobs of the future will be. Educators and policymakers have been told STEM programs are necessary to keep the United States ahead of its challengers in the global economy.
The good news is that those admonitions have been heeded. Data released last month by the state’s Education Research & Data Center show that the number of college students majoring in STEM fields has grown considerably since the onset of the Great Recession a decade ago. By 2016-17, the number of students majoring in computer science had tripled at Washington colleges; there also had been sharp increases in fields such as biochemistry, chemical engineering and electrical engineering.
The flip side of this laudable trend is that humanities and liberal arts majors have precipitously declined. The number of English majors in Washington schools, for example, went from 600 in 2007-08 to 381 a decade later; the number of history majors fell 41 percent, and the number of liberal arts majors dropped 21 percent — statistics that are echoed by nationwide trends.
Benjamin Schmidt, now a history professor at the University of Washington, argued five years ago that the decline of humanities majors was a temporary blip triggered by the economic downturn and the insecurity of the time. Now, he writes: “The last five years have been brutal for almost every major in the humanities. There is, in the only meaningful sense of the word, a crisis. … Rather than recover with the economy the decline accelerated around 2011-2012.”
None of this is meant to suggest that students should or should not seek degrees in history or English or First Century History of Mesopotamia — if such a major exists. Choosing a scholarly pursuit is a complex endeavor driven by a combination of personal interests and economic realities.
Instead, this is meant to point out how the economic turmoil of the past decade created results that will influence future decades, and how young adults are driven by a need for economic security. As Noah Smith writes for Bloomberg Opinion: “The aftermath of the financial crisis likely dealt a permanent blow to many Americans’ expectations of smoothly rising prosperity and wealth; for the generations that came of age during and after the recession, the knowledge that economic disaster could strike at any time is now seared into their worldview.”
Smith also defends the importance of fields that focus on empathy, persuasion and human emotion: “With machines doing much of the technical work now done by engineers, the theory goes, companies will need humans to interact with other humans — providing customer experience, making strategic decisions and building business relationships.”
Meanwhile, it is important to note that not all lucrative professions demand a college degree. Skilled trades such as electrician and plumber require training and certification and expertise that can be gained without the expense of attaining a four-year degree. Those fields and others are in demand and can provide a secure career.
With a strong economy that has unemployment near record low levels, these are good times for workers who have marketable skills. But economic downturns are inevitable, and the key to prospering through the next downturn is for workers to be cognizant of which fields will remain in demand.
