The Myth of a Country Ever More Awash in Holders of "Useless" Degrees

The accusation that the fault for many a national problem lies in the country's young people eschewing STEM in favor of "soft" and "useless" degrees in the arts, humanities and social sciences whose award is something akin to a scam given that upon graduation the fate of those debt-loaded students will be working behind the counter at Starbucks.

As is generally the case with such situations the advancement of the claim, and the debate it provokes (if one dignifies it with that term), is mostly evidence-free--a matter of spewing one's culture war-soiled prejudices.

The fact by itself ought to make the claim suspect. Admittedly education is an area where the collection of statistical data leaves much to be desired. However, the data that is available suffices to make it quite clear that the image of young people all getting "useless" degrees is profoundly false.

Consider, for instance, the much-maligned degree in English. In 2018-2020 the proportion of bachelor's degrees awarded in that field ran below 2 percent of the total (far, far less than you would guess from the noise)--with this, of course, including all those taking English as part of pre-law study, aspirants to work in advertising, persons planning to teach the English language courses that everyone following any course of study must take in school, etc.. The result is that for every B.A. awarded in English American colleges awarded three degrees in engineering, and another three in computer and information science, and at least that many in the biological and biomedical sciences.

Moreover, the trend has been toward less humanities education, and more STEM education, with English and engineering useful reference points. In the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, it may have been common for bachelor's degrees in English to comprise 4-5 percent of the total. By 2010-2011 they were down to 3 percent, on the way to the current level (a drop of a third in a space of a few years). By contrast, if the output of engineering graduates has been more volatile it seems worth remembering that where in the early twenty-first century they seem to have run 4-5 percent of the total, in 2017-2020 they consistently accounted for over 6 percent of B.A.s (a jump of a third in a similarly short span of a time). More broadly, over that decade the Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences category as I have been able to determine it went from accounting for 39 percent of bachelor's degrees at the start of the 2010-2020 period to 33 percent at its end, while STEM categories, broadly defined, surged from 29 to over 39 percent--the ratio gone from 1.3 Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences bachelor's degrees for every one STEM baccalaureate to nearly the reverse (in, again, the space of a decade).* Defining STEM more narrowly so as to focus on the physical science, computer science, engineering and engineering technology graduates, mathematicians and the like (leaving out such undeniable science workers as those in agriculture and natural resources, the biological and biomedical sciences, the health professionals, etc., in favor of the physical science/production-orientation those who speak of the term usually have in mind) I still get a jump from 12 to 16 percent--and so a robust (if somewhat more modest) measure of absolute and relative growth that has these categories going from producing three graduates for every ten in the Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences category to five in the relevant span of time.**

Indeed, to the extent that the image of the overproduction of "useless" arts, humanities and social science majors has any basis it seems to lie in outdated images of what is actually happening at the schools--for the shift has been extraordinary. This is all the more the case as this proportional shift has occurred not in a context where the number of B.A.s awarded fell but actually rose by a near fifth (from 1.72 to 2.04 million), so that one cannot rationalize it as a matter of people simply dropping out of the "useless" humanities, etc. programs. (The number of engineering majors surged from 76,000 in 2010-2011 to 128,000 in 2019-2020, a 68 percent jump bespeaking a sustained 6 percent a year growth rate; the number of graduates of STEM programs as counted here more broadly from 496,000 to 801,000, an only slightly less impressive rate of growth.) Moreover, for all the complaints about the number of foreign students in such programs. (Even discounting the "temporary visa" category one has a fifty percent jump, evidentiating the position that U.S. citizens really are getting so many more degrees.)

It has also happened in a context where there has been little serious effort to make STEM majors more attractive (e.g. better pay and conditions for workers, or an easing of the cost of education for those who go this track); and where there does not seem to have been much done to better equip students to follow those majors at the K-12 level.

One would think that this big jump in the number of STEM majors would be a national story which would give some solace to the "WE NEED MORE STEM!" crowd. However, because it would offer some solace to them (and for many, many other reasons) it conflicts with the narratives so many want to push--of the humanities as a threat to the country because of intellectuals' perversity; of young people having only themselves to blame for their own problems when they leave college and can't find work commensurate with their level of schooling, and the country's industrial decline being attributable to their fecklessness rather than anyone else's--and so is totally ignored by those whose job it is to "inform" the public.

* In calculating the figure for Arts/Humanities/Social Sciences I counted in, besides the "Visual and Performing Arts," English and foreign languages, literature and linguistics, "Social Science and History," "Liberal Arts and Sciences, General studies, and Humanities," "Philosophy and Religious Studies," "Area, Ethnic, Cultural, Gender, and Group Studies," also "Psychology," "Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences," "Theology and Religious Vocation Programs," "Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs," and "Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies." In calculating the figure for STEM I counted in, besides "Engineering," "Engineering Technologies," "Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services," "Communications Technology," "Architecture and Related Services," "Biological and Biomedical Sciences," "Physical Sciences and Science Technologies" and "Mathematics and Statistics," also "Precision Production," "Agriculture and Natural Resources," "Transportation and Materials Moving," "Health Professions and Related Programs," and "Parks, Recreation, Fitness, Leisure and Kinesiology."
** For the calculation I used the "Engineering," "Engineering Technologies," "Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services," "Communications Technology," "Architecture and Related Services," "Physical Sciences and Science Technologies," "Mathematics and Statistics," "Precision Production," and "Transportation and Materials Moving" categories.

Higher Education in the America of Berzelius Windrip

Back before literature went over to the Counter-Enlightenment mind, body and soul, devoting itself to epistemological nihilism, Medieval misanthropy, sneering irony toward human suffering and social concern, and the sniveling subjectivism of the "writers" who have made of the world of letters a Modernist-postmodernist Wasteland this past century, it was the case that a great writer could be expected to show us something of the world through their art. In early twentieth century America this was still very much the case with greats such as Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck and, of course, Sinclair Lewis.

In line with that cultural shift what made these writers great has since been held against them, with Lewis no exception. Indeed, that champion of the New Criticism Mark Schorer personally played a significant part in destroying Lewis' reputation (as he did that of H.G. Wells), and I am not sure it ever recovered. Still, Lewis' works did endure, such that the literate (such as exist) are still likely to not be completely confused when they hear of George F. Babbitt, or an Elmer Gantry--and indeed it seems that there has been some revival of interest in one of his later works, It Can't Happen Here.

Still, if the book was more talked about than it had been in a long time I'm not sure how many actually read it--and how many of those were attentive to the bit about what happened to higher education in America under the dictatorship of America's answer to Mussolini and Hitler, Berzelius Windrip. As Lewis wrote, the country got new model universities that, rather than "merely kick[ing] out all treacherous so-called "intellectual" teachers who mulishly declined to teach physics, cookery, and geography according to the principles and facts laid down by the political bureaus," were "free from the very first of any taint of 'intellectualism.'" Thus they virtually annihilated the humanities and sciences (dispensing entirely with ancient languages, ancient history, foreign literature and even pre-1800 English literature excepting Shakespeare and Milton, while in science declaring that "too much and too confusing research had already been done" and need not be bothered with anymore), leaving little but political indoctrination (the one history course retained in the curriculum devoted to "show[ing] that, through the centuries, the key to civilization had been the defense of Anglo-Saxon purity against barbarians"), vocational training ("lakeshore-cottage architecture . . . schnauzer-breeding") and athletics with a growing tilt toward preparation for what no fascist state can live without, war (with "speed contests in infantry drill, aviation, bombing, and operation of tanks, armored cars, and machine guns" counting for academic credit).

Being a satire from the 1930s Lewis' book had its over-the-top and in cases dated touches--but I leave it to you to wonder just how big a stretch this vision is from a great deal of talk about higher education conventionally treated as eminently practical and respectable, and what that says about the sort of media we have.

Should Economics Be Classified as a STEM Subject?

In recent years there has been a big push to have economics classified as a STEM field--and while this issue is not exactly high on the public agenda it does seem worth saying that most of the discussion of the issue is in favor of such a change. And at a glance that may seem natural. After all, economics is supposed to be a science, and as currently taught it is certainly intensively mathematical.

However, the issue is more complex than it looks--because of the ambiguities of the STEM category, and the context in which proponents of the idea are trying to make STEM a part of it.

Just What is STEM Anyway?
In the past I have admitted to a dislike of the term STEM. This was mainly a reaction to its glib slogan-ness, which it seemed to me made it easier for people to push a bunch of simple-minded and harmful attitudes all the more forcefully—in particular the idea of a hierarchy of intellectual endeavor (and the minds which pursue them), and the diversion of attention from the real problems of the country's manufacturing base, and its college graduates, and much, much else associated them with a dismissive "Those lazy, stupid young people are studying the wrong things."

Still, there is also the (totally unsurprising) intellectual haziness behind the glib formulation. STEM awkwardly lumps together Science, Technology, Engineering, Math--which is to say forms of knowledge and activity to be found all across the economy, such that one can define it so broadly as to include virtually everyone. The number of working people who have absolutely nothing to do with any of those fields in their work is not exactly high, and likely falling all the time with anyone at a desk likely to have a computer in front of them--while going much less far one finds blurry boundaries. Consider, for example, the elementary school teacher who performs the important function of imparting the rudiments of math and science to very young people who will include the STEM workers of tomorrow. Consider the doctor who is lengthily trained in the sciences and their application. Certainly they merit acknowledgment as STEM workers--but they are not what people usually think of when (again, glibly) tossing about the term. Instead what they seem to have in mind was physical scientists (physicists, chemists, etc.), engineers, and people with advanced training in allied occupations (mathematics, computers) devoted to the work of high-technology physical production--and STEM made a cause célèbre in the name of expanding the work force for high-technology manufacturing, such that what was wanted was not so much more in the way of pure scientists or mathematicians (certainly there is no shortage of, for example, qualified Ph.d-holding applicants for tenured university positions in those fields) as more of the Technology and Engineering folks for industry.

But of course the fuzziness, and the hype about STEM, STEM, STEM! gave it the status of "cool kids club" and everyone wanted in (the more in as educational institutions craved the government and private sector support--read: money--going or likely to go to STEM, the more so amid the brutal austerity of the general scene), such that the head can spin just trying to keep track with all the initiatives to get this field recognized as STEM, that field recognized as STEM. And economics has been no exception. But if we are to stick with what STEM is really about then, no, economics does not have a claim here. But even if we take the broader view we still find ourselves facing other important questions.

Physics Envy?
Economics as we know it is a product of the Enlightenment and its respect for science--with the same going for its being a specifically mathematical science (where, at least from the standpoint of mainstream, neoclassical economics, Stanley Jevons' work was foundational). Indeed, the aspiration has been reflected in the etymology of the term "economics." Where people previously spoke of "political economy" from the dawn of its neoclassical era on they increasingly cut out the "political"—cut of the idea that economic life and its rules were rooted in specific historical, technological, social, cultural--and political--conditions, and instead presented economic life as "autonomous." Putting it another way it bespoke the claim that what (mainstream) economists taught--above all, the optimality of profit-seeking, property-owning private individuals being left to their own devices as completely as physically and morally possible, with any attempt to alter the direction of economic life from the path such individuals put it on not only the worst of oppression, but an exercise in futility certain to produce catastrophe--was as indifferent to particular social conditions, as true in all times and places, as Newton's laws of motion.

Not everyone agreed with that teaching, of course, and that being the case they could still less agree with the grand claim for their teaching as eternal truth--the insistence that "This is science!" an attempt to rationalize what the rich find convenient and hostility to anything they would find inconvenient, with the pretense to it all being "science" suspect down to the use of the math itself. (Indeed, as economist James K. Galbraith--who, far from being the harshest critic contemporary economics has, and certainly no anti-capitalist-- remarked, "the clumsy algebra of a typical professional economics article" is there "not to clarify, or to charm, but to intimidate," for ideas "that would come across as simpleminded in English can be made 'impressive looking' with a sufficient string of Greek symbols," and any critic of the argument dismissed as simply too obtuse to follow all the math.)

Moreover, it is notable that those calling for economics to be recognized as a STEM field are not making the same demand on behalf of other social sciences--indeed, are often prone to distance economics from those subjects out of which it grew in line with common prejudices. Social science is squishy and useless, they say--in contrast with practical, useful, tough-minded economics. Again, there is a political prejudice here--namely, against what such persons tend to see as the leftishness of the social sciences (the biggest reason of all for their contempt toward it), as against an economics field whose mainstream has overwhelmingly and squarely stood with the right for the last century and a half (by cutting those social sciences out of the picture, by when Keynesianism could not be ignored bastardizing it beyond all recognition, by nurturing the intellectual seeds of and propagandizing for the neoliberal revolution) a significant factor in its comparative respectability.

In considering the drive to get economics recognized as a STEM field one cannot overlook this dimension of the issue--which to those who object with the claims for economics can only seem the more wrong-headed at a moment when the neoliberal project that the economics field has so squarely promoted, enabled, helped operate stands in more discredit than it has been at any point since it became a political force a half century ago.

Why Aren't More Young People Attracted to Study of and Careers in STEM Subjects? A Thought

Before proceeding any further I think it necessary to say that there is a considerable body of literature debunking the myth of a (to use the awkward and fuzzy but nonetheless pervasive term) "STEM" skills shortage, and that I generally agree with the case it makes. (Indeed, far from America's young people determinedly refusing to study STEM my own examination of the recent data shows that even when we cut foreign students in the country on a visa out of the picture American colleges' output of B.A.s in engineering surged by 50 percent in the 2010-2020 period.)

It also seems to me worth saying that the endurance of the myth of a STEM skills shortage is entirely political--a matter of scapegoating the humanities, intellectuals and young people for the country's industrial weakness, and the difficult prospects of college graduates, and that the reason this is so successful is because of the numerous interests that find this convenient, and the deference shown them by a news media that never fails to fulfill its designated role as their (to use the most polite word of which I can think) courtiers.

Still, even if there is no shortage of STEM personnel, it does not seem to me inaccurate to say that young people are less attracted to it than to other subject matter which may be less promising career-wise.

It is virtually certain that many factors are operative here--like the extreme variation in American educational outcomes at the K-12 level that means many never had a shot at the proper foundations (you won't do well in trigonometry if your algebra is shaky), and the snobbery that surrounds the stupid hierarchy some make of intellectual life (the stridency about math being superior to words, science to arts, etc. intimidating many and sending many persons with the required aptitudes in other directions).

But I think one particularly overlooked factor is the absence of something we see in other areas.

Consider, for instance, their study of English. Certainly few seem to be very satisfied with the quality of the education imparted in this area, with some justice. (In a country where, on average, people have two years of college--have gone up to "grade 14"--why do they generally read at an eighth grade level?)

But learning here is not limited to what goes on in the classroom. Consider how--not so very long ago--many people read--for fun.

Not everyone was a reader. (Even before the explosion of electronic home entertainment there were those who preferred sports.) And those who did read did not always read the sort of things their parents and teachers would have liked them to be reading. But they read all the same. In the process they practiced their skills, and enlarged their vocabularies, even when they were only entertaining themselves.

Some people even wrote--for fun. They produced diaries, journals, stories--sometimes even whole novels. (A fifteen year old's first novel is not likely to be a great work of literature--but all the same, novels.) And in the process they worked on the relevant skills yet again.

Many, in fact, enjoyed it so much that they aspired to do this kind of thing for a living--so many that, in spite of what was more often than not the extreme discouragement of the people around them, and the extremely long odds against their ever making a living this way --they put a lot of time and effort into trying to do that. And while this is not a particularly happy part of the story it seems to me that what led up to that did make a difference in the overall level of ability people had, and their willingness to pursue degrees and take up jobs where their English skills are relevant.

There simply was not the same opportunity to amuse themselves with numbers that there was with words; to, in the course of pure recreation, improve their mathematical skills the same way; to exercise their imaginations, and express themselves, and play, with numbers the way they could with words; and to do what all this made possible, discover a passion for the activity. Of course, some fell in love with numbers anyway. But the odds, the chances, were far fewer. Save for those few who were exceptionally susceptible to its attraction, or had special opportunity to get interested (perhaps because they had a knowledgeable parent who knew how to intrigue them, who was able to show them that here, too, there could be imagination and play and much else), math was plain and simple work--something they had to study in a highly structured, punitive, stress-and-fear-filled environment which made many want to have nothing to do with it when they could avoid it. Which diminished the odds of becoming attracted to math yet again.

I do not know that it could necessarily have been any other way. But the fact that it has not been that other way must be accounted a part of the story--while it may factor into how the situation is changing. Again, looking over the B.A.s being rewarded I was struck by how the popularity of English as a college major plummeted in recent years, such that where the allotment of some 50,000 such bachelor's degrees seemed to be the norm in the 1990s and the twenty-first century down to 2013-2014 the figure stood at under 40,000 in 2018-2020 (a fall from the level of 5 percent of the degrees awarded in 1990-1991 to under 2 percent of them in 2019-2010, and perhaps still falling). One can argue that the endless drum-beating on behalf of STEM, STEM, STEM! (and the denigration of the humanities that has gone with it) has factored into their choosing other studies and other careers. However, it may also be no coincidence that the age cohort getting those later degrees grew up in a more fully digital age where there was less and less scope for reading to compete with other entertainments--and the smart phone, in its having everyone taking the whole package of electronic entertainment options everywhere with them, delivered a Mortal Kombat-like finishing blow. Bluntly put, we have fewer English majors because we have fewer people who found that they liked to read--in what can seem another rebuke to that conventional wisdom which, again, is ever conventional, but rarely wise.