650,000 jobs

[Alpha]

A degree in dead languages might be useful for certain archaeology positions. But there are probably only a handful of these positions in the whole world.

It's not even a degree. It's a minor. This is a liberal arts school. They have a lot of programs under review now because they will have 1 or 2 students in the program. Why do you have a program for so few students? They don't have business degrees, IT degrees, etc. In good times they have about 2500 students. Now it's around 2000. I have no idea how they have survived having so many programs with a handful of students. I can't imagine they're the only college like this either. With Ithaca College dropping 20 programs, you can see how much can really be trimmed away at many colleges. 

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

[dfrecore]

A degree in dead languages might be useful for certain archaeology positions. But there are probably only a handful of these positions in the whole world.

It's not even a degree. It's a minor. This is a liberal arts school. They have a lot of programs under review now because they will have 1 or 2 students in the program. Why do you have a program for so few students? They don't have business degrees, IT degrees, etc. In good times they have about 2500 students. Now it's around 2000. I have no idea how they have survived having so many programs with a handful of students. I can't imagine they're the only college like this either. With Ithaca College dropping 20 programs, you can see how much can really be trimmed away at many colleges. 

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

The school only offers 13 majors in total and 12 of those are STEM - so they HAVE to cut STEM majors if they cut anything.  And they only have 77 students, more than half of whom are seniors in the 5 majors they're cutting.  So basically they don't have students wanting those majors.  They SHOULD be cutting them.

[Alpha]

A degree in dead languages might be useful for certain archaeology positions. But there are probably only a handful of these positions in the whole world.

It's not even a degree. It's a minor. This is a liberal arts school. They have a lot of programs under review now because they will have 1 or 2 students in the program. Why do you have a program for so few students? They don't have business degrees, IT degrees, etc. In good times they have about 2500 students. Now it's around 2000. I have no idea how they have survived having so many programs with a handful of students. I can't imagine they're the only college like this either. With Ithaca College dropping 20 programs, you can see how much can really be trimmed away at many colleges. 

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

The school only offers 13 majors in total and 12 of those are STEM - so they HAVE to cut STEM majors if they cut anything.  And they only have 77 students, more than half of whom are seniors in the 5 majors they're cutting.  So basically they don't have students wanting those majors.  They SHOULD be cutting them.

Yeah, you're right.  A tiny school cutting programs that are allegedly in demand.  It makes me think that this school might be on its way out.

[ss20ts]

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

It's not a bad thing to retire programs that aren't bringing in students though. 77 people in 5 degrees is on average 15 people per degree! That's insane. And half of those 77 are seniors which means that this fall there will be at most 38 people in those 5 degree programs which drops the average even lower down to under 8 people per degree. That is not fiscally responsible in any way. All STEM degrees aren't great at every school. 

[dfrecore]

A degree in dead languages might be useful for certain archaeology positions. But there are probably only a handful of these positions in the whole world.

It's not even a degree. It's a minor. This is a liberal arts school. They have a lot of programs under review now because they will have 1 or 2 students in the program. Why do you have a program for so few students? They don't have business degrees, IT degrees, etc. In good times they have about 2500 students. Now it's around 2000. I have no idea how they have survived having so many programs with a handful of students. I can't imagine they're the only college like this either. With Ithaca College dropping 20 programs, you can see how much can really be trimmed away at many colleges. 

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

The school only offers 13 majors in total and 12 of those are STEM - so they HAVE to cut STEM majors if they cut anything.  And they only have 77 students, more than half of whom are seniors in the 5 majors they're cutting.  So basically they don't have students wanting those majors.  They SHOULD be cutting them.

Yeah, you're right.  A tiny school cutting programs that are allegedly in demand.  It makes me think that this school might be on its way out.

Or as they said, they're focusing on the degrees with the most students completing them.  I'm not sure what the deal is, this is the most perfectly natural thing in the world.  Schools should be looking at and getting rid of degrees all the time.  Every year.  Otherwise, they WILL go away because they're offering things nobody wants.

[Alpha]

It's not even a degree. It's a minor. This is a liberal arts school. They have a lot of programs under review now because they will have 1 or 2 students in the program. Why do you have a program for so few students? They don't have business degrees, IT degrees, etc. In good times they have about 2500 students. Now it's around 2000. I have no idea how they have survived having so many programs with a handful of students. I can't imagine they're the only college like this either. With Ithaca College dropping 20 programs, you can see how much can really be trimmed away at many colleges. 

Here's another example of a university cutting programs except this time it's a group of STEM programs that are being eliminated.  
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktake...5-programs

The school only offers 13 majors in total and 12 of those are STEM - so they HAVE to cut STEM majors if they cut anything.  And they only have 77 students, more than half of whom are seniors in the 5 majors they're cutting.  So basically they don't have students wanting those majors.  They SHOULD be cutting them.

Yeah, you're right.  A tiny school cutting programs that are allegedly in demand.  It makes me think that this school might be on its way out.

Or as they said, they're focusing on the degrees with the most students completing them.  I'm not sure what the deal is, this is the most perfectly natural thing in the world.  Schools should be looking at and getting rid of degrees all the time.  Every year.  Otherwise, they WILL go away because they're offering things nobody wants.

I think that schools/regions could cooperate so that not every school is duplicating the programs of the other schools.  There may not be enough interested students to support an Art History department at every school but systems could be developed to insure that it's an available option somewhere in the system.  That's one reason why I like state university systems.  They can manage this more easily.  Schools might become more specialized in this way, attract the best instructors and have a better chance of developing scholarly expertise within their respective areas.  I think you could pay attention to shifting demand and preserve low demand academic areas at the same time.

[rachel83az]

I agree that unpopular doesn't necessarily mean useless or bad. Neurosurgeons are super important but they make up a relatively small amount of med school graduates. It would be bad if schools dropped neurosurgery because it wasn't "popular enough". Better transferability/availability like Alpha says would be great for things like this.

[dfrecore]

Or as they said, they're focusing on the degrees with the most students completing them.  I'm not sure what the deal is, this is the most perfectly natural thing in the world.  Schools should be looking at and getting rid of degrees all the time.  Every year.  Otherwise, they WILL go away because they're offering things nobody wants.

I think that schools/regions could cooperate so that not every school is duplicating the programs of the other schools.  There may not be enough interested students to support an Art History department at every school but systems could be developed to insure that it's an available option somewhere in the system.  That's one reason why I like state university systems.  They can manage this more easily.  Schools might become more specialized in this way, attract the best instructors and have a better chance of developing scholarly expertise within their respective areas.  I think you could pay attention to shifting demand and preserve low demand academic areas at the same time.

So, really, what happens, is that as a major becomes less popular, fewer schools offer it, and eventually you get a smaller number of schools that offer it, and people are funneled to those schools.  Also, as a major becomes less popular, fewer people take it, and then, eventually there are also fewer people teaching it, so schools couldn't offer it anyway.  This all makes 100% sense.  It's the market at work.

Schools have limited budgets, so they have to try to offer things more people want.  They also have to specialize and offer a few things that fewer schools offer.  So not everyone can offer everything, and that would just be silly.  Instead, they have to balance it all out.

[Alpha]

Lots of schools are cutting programs, laying off staff, etc. but some schools are hiring.  But if you want one of those jobs you'd better make sure your passport is up to date.
So many new universities – Where will the staff come from? (universityworldnews.com)

[Alpha]

Another one bites the dust.
Mills College To End New Admissions After This Fall And Stop Offering Four-Year Degrees In 2023 (forbes.com)