Colleges across the nation are facing the matter of young students not wanting to pursue humanities degrees as much as in the past. 

Many colleges have even begun cutting several humanities majors, while Universities such as Akron have already slashed majors like art history and interior design.

Pam Tomlinson, a former interior design student, disappointed with how humanities majors are being cut, but understands why many schools have made the decision to cut the programs.

“Schools have to make money, and when less and less people are going for these programs, of course the programs are going to be cut. It’s just sad because many students will have to travel further or not even get the opportunity to pursue their dream career because of it,” she said.

While Kent State still has great arts and humanities programs, it’s still having trouble competing with majors with more promising job prospects.

Logan Spence, a recent graduate from Streetsboro high school, thought about pursuing a degree in history and possibly political science to become a history teacher.

Ultimately, he decided to stick to welding as he didn’t think he would like the degree path and felt that both humanities majors and teachers face a lot of struggle when pursuing a degree after graduating.

“I probably have a steadier career welding. I know I make a lot more an hour than a lot of new college graduates do. It would’ve been cool to be a teacher, but happy I have a career that pays well without getting into school debt or having to fight for a job,” Spence said.

Both Tomlinson and Spence think that a lot of people aren’t interested in these majors because they don’t see a future with them.

“Most high school teachers aren’t running around telling kids to get a philosophy or english degree. They want kids to be doctors and engineers, not writers and philosophers. Plus there’s a lot more to the arts and humanities than people think,” Tomlinson said.

Spence also thinks more people might consider them if they were pushed more and made more intriguing in their younger years.

“A lot of my teachers made the STEM majors sound a lot better than any other ones. I guess since that’s where the growth is, that’s where they want the kids to go. Maybe if they made history and english majors sound as cool, more of us would join,” he said.