Dive Brief:
- While there was an 11% jump in degrees awarded between 2010 and 2014, the majority of that growth occurred in 2010 and 2011 — with less than 1% increases in completion during the following two years.
- A CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. analysis found more than half of the fastest-growing programs were in STEM fields, with the only programs showing actual declines primarily coming from the humanities and other fields related to teaching.
- Law degrees aren't immune, either, as they saw early growth in the four years studied and then a drop that amounted to a 7% reduction in degree completion from 2013 to 2014.
Dive Insight:
For years teaching schools have been criticized for churning out too many unqualified teachers. Now they are graduating fewer students, but many districts are feeling the squeeze. Teachers, as a group, have been attacked by politicians and parents, their retirements are vulnerable to state budget holes, and many are in the middle of a high-stakes implementation of new standards in the Common Core. The idea that humanities fields are losing students is not new, and perhaps hides the fact that most students still take humanities courses — but the drop in degree completions that go to future teachers could foreshadow a crisis.