The College Majors With the Worst Return on Investment in 2026 — Ranked Nearly 25% of college degrees deliver a negative return on investment. Here are the majors with the worst ROI in 2026 — ranked by salary, debt, and lifetime earnings data.

Another example in the "arts and humanities degrees have terrible ROI" genre, based on mystery data: bit.ly/4sQNAuK

Duke’s investments split between STEM growth and humanities expansion After a year of cost-cutting, The Chronicle looked at where Duke is spending its dollars, finding that while a significant amount of external funding has gone to STEM and AI, the University still devo...

Duke Univ.: "despite declining enrollment, some humanities departments continue to bolster their faculty ranks... the humanities saw the greatest share of new hires in 2022, 2024 and 2025, followed by the natural sciences and social sciences." bit.ly/42jzze7

The humanities don’t need to be afraid of AI In suggesting that AI will not undermine the intellectual integrity of the humanities, I’m not saying that the humanities won’t evolve. But evolving is not the same as vanishing.

"While some students in humanities classes see no problem with AI usage... there still exist passionate humanities students who want to contribute to their fields with original thinking driven by their human perspective and experience." bit.ly/4cykESa

Measuring the Economic and Civic Value of the Humanities Workforce - Ithaka S+R Today’s students increasingly see higher education as a vehicle to employment, and colleges and universities have a responsibility to ensure that graduates are well-positioned to meet their career goa...

"Our aim is to build a clearer, multi-dimensional account, grounded in evidence, of how the #humanities fit into the higher education ecosystem, and what that means for students, institutions, and the public." bit.ly/3OyAAvC

If I am reading this right, they think about 8% of undergrad humanities programs will fail under the regulation, and 17% of the grad programs.

Proposed rule to cut federal student loan support: "students in Religious Studies programs, #Humanities/Liberal Arts programs, Education programs, Drama programs, and Music programs will be most impacted" bit.ly/4cwFWzt

Universities must ‘speak up more about value of humanities’ EU focus on fields most closely linked to economic gains a ‘growing threat’ to other disciplines, leaders fear

“I’m very worried about the state of play of humanities and social sciences.... Several politicians openly say that if you look closely, they don’t contribute to competitiveness and productivity. They say, they are nice to have but let’s not focus too much on them.” bit.ly/4cn89IU

Within the humanities, almost every discipline awarded fewer degrees in 2024 than 12 years earlier (Indicator II-03d). The largest proportional drops in degrees awarded occurred in religious studies (down 59%)"

New today: "In 2024, the nation’s colleges and universities awarded 165,489 bachelor’s degrees in the #humanities—the smallest number of degrees awarded since 1991 and 30% below the recent high-water mark in 2012" bit.ly/4sDtLqM

Curiosity Clinics and the Speculative Pedagogical Future | UW College of Arts & Sciences An essay focusing on a pedagogical experimental model called the Curiosity Clinic.

"the Curiosity Clinic was also a different way to organize our work in the university and—importantly—to teach differently in a particularly difficult time and in ways that restored joy and wonder for faculty and students alike, all done during the span of about six hours." bit.ly/4tSrk4E

"We recommend that Yale reaffirm its commitment to the undergraduate liberal arts and work actively to help students translate a liberal arts education into successful professional and civic life." bit.ly/4vOAvoC

Since the ACLS and NHC meetings have been cancelled, I have some travel funds I need to use. If you would like a speaker for your campus on the state of the humanities and/or career outcomes for humanities majors, get in touch.

What AI Can’t Do AI may replace narrow technical skills, but the liberal arts equip students with the critical thinking employers increasingly demand.

"The liberal arts need not be a hard sell. Many young people are drawn to the big questions they ask.... They can give students the grounding to get the best results from AI by interrogating it rather than leaning on it." bit.ly/4tNb1pC

Bring Everything | Each spark we make brightens the bigger picture. At Texas State, we challenge you to Bring Everything—your leadership, your grit, and your most fearless ideas. In return, we provide the firepower: a transformative $300 million investment over the ne...

Interesting. Texas State University is making a large strategic investment in five "areas of impact," one of which is digital humanities: bit.ly/4801PWH.

Palantir CEO says AI will replace humanities jobs as Gen Z workers resist rollouts Gen Z workers are fighting against AI rollouts as CEOs warn of AI's effect on the labor market.

"those who refuse to submit to their AI overlords may actually be sabotaging their own careers, with 77% of executives saying they would be less likely to offer promotions or leadership roles to AI abstainers." bit.ly/425Wo4U

Employment Outcomes for Humanities Majors: State Profiles In the first national study of its kind, the Humanities Indicators project reports on the career outcomes of humanities majors in each state and the District of Columbia. The profiles estimate the num...

We are about to update the state profiles of employment outcomes for #humanities majors (bit.ly/4dKr9n8). Are there any other data points you would like to see for your state? And data points on the "one-pagers" you don't want to see or would prefer in a different form?

"As AI systems take over cognitive tasks, uniquely human skills of interpersonal communication, empathy, ethical reasoning and adaptability will become more valuable.... Rather than defend the humanities... define and articulate their evolving value clearly." bit.ly/4vhhHOl

Why A Liberal Arts Education Will Soon Be More Valuable Than Ever | NOEMA In a workplace augmented by AI, the new frontier of human value lies in interpretation, negotiation and trust-building.

"The most valuable skill is no longer the ability to generate a technical output, but rather the capacity to evaluate a hundred AI-generated options and identify the connections that matter most. This is the capacity for seeing connections and resonances" bit.ly/4snHGkq

"If you’re still in school, college especially, take a #humanities course. Make an effort to read something — a novel, poetry, philosophy, news — to slow down the breakneck pace of life we’ve become accustomed to." bit.ly/4bZA1nE

Fender’s new CEO says his ASU humanities degree was instrumental in his career journey | ASU News When Edward “Bud” Cole was 19 years old, he thought he would become a rock star.He had a guitar in his hand and his band, Rain Convention, would record hundreds of songs and open for the English rock ...

"It might seem odd that a humanities degree would lead Cole to...leading a music company with more than 2,000 employees worldwide. But Cole said his degree in English taught him how to think and analyze." bit.ly/4tv6TdH

Diminished Lives: an Assault on the Humanities More and more students are being indoctrinated into a cult of cold “efficiency,” where the training of workers for corporate employment are held to be the ultimate priorities.

"There was no library at the school and, in the classrooms, literary books had largely been abandoned and replaced by tiny bits of writing that were known as practice texts." bit.ly/4sqB1pD

GUEST COLUMN: The humanities are already winning in the age of AI Degrees in the humanities have spent decades under scrutiny, but the rise of AI has changed the modern job market, making interpersonal skills in the liberal arts more valuable than ever.

"Having an original thought will be the only possible currency worth showcasing at a job interview, or in life at large. So maybe give that Eastern literature or creative writing elective more of a chance." bit.ly/4tA4QoS

UK job cuts hit English and modern languages staff hardest ‘Vicious cycle’ of course closures means system ‘gradually losing breadth and depth of expertise’

"The number of English language and literature academics fell by 8 per cent.... And the number employed in modern languages dropped 7 per cent... This is 17 per cent below peak levels in 2015-16." bit.ly/4cdG4Uv

Belt tightening for the humanities, even at Yale: bit.ly/41gHkkP

Trump Will Fund New Archway With $15 Million From the National Endowment for the Humanities A spending plan confirms taxpayer dollars will be used for the project.

Trump Will Fund New Archway With $15 Million From the National Endowment for the Humanities: bit.ly/41fiMZr

A good time to remind folks that they can support this kind of work through their Advocacy Fund at bit.ly/4vyGcab

ALERT: Historical Group Seeks Order to Prevent Trump from Destroying Records Lawsuit Allege Trump is Threatening to Ignore Presidential Records Act

"In a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., the American Historical Association asks a court to rule the Presidential Records Act remains constitutional and cannot be ignored by Trump Administration." bit.ly/4cvcxXB

Opinion | How Humanists Helped Wreck the Humanities Administrators, ideologues, and yes — professors too — share the blame. But all is not lost.

"AI was not so much a new threat to humanistic inquiry as it was the final, decisive blow dealt by a many-fisted menace that had been stalking us for years. A combination of technological, economic, political, and cultural forces, at work both within and without the university" bit.ly/3NOhkdv

"Americans with a bachelor’s degree were approximately twice as likely to use AI to write, revise, or summarize text daily or weekly compared to those without the degree."

Terribly sorry! You can find it at www.amacad.org/sites/defaul...