Growing frustration over rising tuition costs, student loan debt and a lack of skilled workers — especially in science and technology — has led an increasing number of states to implement incentives for public universities and colleges to encourage students to seek degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to The New York Times.
However, humanities and liberal arts students are less likely to receive support.
"There will be more incentives to electrical engineers than French literature majors, there just will," Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) said last month when announcing his spending plan, according to the report. "All the people in the world who want to study French literature can do so; they're just not going to be subsidized by the taxpayers like engineers will be, for example."
Gov. Patrick McCrory of North Carolina put it plainly: Higher education funding should not "be based on butts in the seats, but on how many of those butts can get jobs."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 15 states offer some form of bonus or premium for certain high-demand degrees, The New York Times reported.
This approach to funding higher education has angered many educators, not because of the emphasis on workforce development, but over the apparent disdain for the humanities, especially among Republicans, according to the report. Some Republican elected officials have referred to liberal arts as a luxury for college students — something that is expendable and undeserving of funding by taxpayers. Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.), for example, previously called for "more welders and fewer philosophers."
While Democrats have largely avoided belittling or denouncing the humanities, they have argued education should be geared toward preparing young people for the job market. For instance, to the dismay of many academics, the Obama administration proposed rating the 7,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. on measures such as earnings after graduation, in addition to standard metrics, such as completion rates and student loan debt, according to the report.
"There's a deeper question of what public money should be used for," said Anthony Carnevale, PhD, a research professor and director of the GeorgetownUniversityCenter on Education and the Workforce in Washington, D.C., according to the report. "The problem is that education is now the principal determinant of earnings, and we pay no attention to it at all. That's gone too far. There's a lot of buyer's regret out there."
Dr. Carnevale argues students should have access to more information about employment and wages before they select a major so they can make informed choices. He said a graduate with a high-earning degree could make as much as $4 million more in a lifetime than other college graduates. Furthermore, he argues most of the top earners with degrees in the liberal arts will make as much money as the bottom earners in STEM careers, or even less than some high school graduates without a college education, according to the report.
The average salary for recent college graduates who majored in the humanities is $46,065, compared with the average starting salary of $65,000 per year for engineers, according to survey data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
But many critics have opposed the idea of restricting state support from liberal arts students. "We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road," said Debra Humphreys, a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, according to the report. "You run a huge risk when you say you are going to divert money from this major to that major."
Research by the association shows employers are less concerned with individual majors than broad-based analytic, problem solving and communication skills, which are a main focus within humanities majors.
"A lot of feedback we get from employers is not only about the necessity of technical skills, but the soft skills as well — the ability to think creatively, work in groups, things that you traditionally get in the liberal arts," said Russ Deaton, the interim executive director of Tennessee's Higher Education Commission. "It's not as simple as STEM is valued and worthy of incentives and everything else is not."