Education Commons^™

Defending The Humanities: Making A Case For Eighteenth-Century Studies, Katherine Gustafson, Heather King, Scott R. St. Louis, Linda Zionkowski

Peer Reviewed Articles

While the percentage of humanities majors has long been on the decline, the more recent experiences of the Great Recession, its aftermath, and the outbreak of Covid-19 have introduced a variety of daunting and intertwined challenges to scholars in these disciplines. Financial and occupational anxieties surrounding higher education threaten not only to crowd out humanities departments but also to alter the very understanding of what higher education is. While some students attend college to prepare themselves for engaged citizenship or to learn in a community, many also attend as a pathway to employment and expect a prompt return on investment. …