Liberal arts are on a long decline. Some Minnesota schools are finding new ways to boost them.

The liberal arts, once a cornerstone of higher education, have been on a slow but dramatic decline at Minnesota colleges and universities for two decades.

English majors in Minnesota have declined by 44% while ethnic and gender studies majors have dropped by more than half over the last 18 years. Meanwhile, health professions majors have ballooned by 613% and computer science majors have nearly tripled.

“In the public’s perception, there is a real question around, ‘What’s the value of the liberal arts?’” said Ascan Koerner, a communications professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. “I think there is such a concern about the return on investment of a college degree.”

The decline in the liberal arts in Minnesota come as Americans reconsider what students should expect from a four-year degree as tuition costs and student debt keep climbing. And undergraduate students are choosing career-oriented majors they believe will make them more employable in a tight labor market.

Still, colleges are finding innovative ways to ensure the liberal arts remain relevant and integrated into students’ experiences. Schools are launching classics programs, more students are adding a liberal arts-related double major or minor, and others are flocking to extracurricular activities like theater, officials said.

“People in my field are not simply giving up,” said Chris Gehrz, a history professor at Bethel University. “I think we are trying very hard to tell our story well, to understand where our students are coming from and to try to give them different kinds of experiences.”

Senior Natalee Bushman still believes in the value of a liberal arts degree. Bushman, a double major in English and communications skills at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, picked her English major because she loves to read, write and talk with people.

“Shaping and crafting policies every day would be ideal for me,” she said. “I tell [people] like, ‘Oh, I want to work in government’ and they get that.”

During the 2006-07 school year — the furthest Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education (OHE) data goes back — business, education and social sciences were the most popular majors. By 2023, business was still among the most popular, but so were health professions and psychology.

The COVID-19 pandemic makes it harder to interpret how students’ subject-matter interests are changing over time because some schools saw declining enrollment overall then. But statewide data still shows serious dips overall in liberal arts degrees since 2019. English degrees, for instance, have fallen 25% over that period, and political science is down 23%.

That’s led to some liberal arts departments and majors to be put on the chopping block. St. Cloud State University cut five undergraduate majors, including philosophy and theater, in 2023 — the same year the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University slashed majors like ancient Mediterranean studies and majors and minors in six world languages.

Three years ago, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota started phasing out 11 liberal art majors, including art, Spanish and theology.

There’s long been confusion about what constitutes the liberal arts and ideas vary widely, officials said, though most administrators say it includes a wide-ranging collection of disciplines, including fine arts, the humanities — such as English, philosophy and history — and the social sciences, like sociology. But liberal arts also encompass majors that have become more popular, including math and sciences such as biology. Psychology is also booming.

The term can often mean something different at liberal arts colleges, which focus on providing a broad, general education rather than career preparation alone.

That makes it hard to measure how the liberal arts are faring by just counting majors.

“You’ll often hear ‘liberal arts’ and it’s not a group of majors necessarily,” said Susan Rundell Singer, president of St. Olaf College in Northfield. “It’s a way of learning, a way of knowing.”

Not everyone is seeing the same trends, though, and some colleges say the picture has gotten a bit rosier over the last five or six years, with big decreases leveling off and even a few gains. Liberal arts majors are up 8% at Metropolitan State University over last year, said College of Liberal Arts Dean Kristen Lillvis and programs like professional communication and studio art are growing.

Even at such schools, though, students are increasingly drawn to the sciences, including at Carleton College, President Alison Byerly said. But students don’t choose Carleton if they’re not passionate about the liberal arts, she said, and the school has plenty of applicants.

Computer science is the most popular Carleton major, as it also was in 2015 and 2020. Biology and chemistry rounded out the top three last year.

State data shows history majors at Carleton and St. Olaf are down by nearly half since 2006-07 while philosophy majors are down by more than half at St. Olaf over the same period.

College leaders say that the liberal arts majors provide graduates with a long list of practical skills, including critical thinking, communication skills, the ability to work well with others and adaptability. They also teach people to write persuasively, recognize patterns and pull together disparate information.

Across the state, administrators and professors said they’re finding new ways to ensure the liberal arts have staying power and remain relevant.

“We have a tendency to think about this increasingly technology-enhanced world … as shifting us away from needing the liberal arts,” Kowalewski said. “I would make the argument that that shift in technology … is actually increasing our need for more liberal arts education, but you have to help people see that connection.”

From Metro State to Minnesota State University, Mankato, other professors said they were doing something similar. Mankato is merging subjects like gender studies with criminal justice while philosophy faculty teach most ethics classes at the business school, said Michael Olson, interim dean of Mankato’s College of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

At the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, “interdisciplinary majors and minors that cover a lot more area” are in-demand, said GerShun Avilez, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the largest school at the U. Psychology is the most popular major, Avilez said.

Students are intrigued by majors that cross disciplinary boundaries like urban studies, he said, and there’s a new major combining business and economics this year.

“When we see the shifting numbers, we assume that means people don’t care about [the liberal arts], but actually they’re looking for other majors,” Avilez said.

“That’s one of those hopeful places where, if we’ve reached the end of the road for certain departmental and disciplinary possibilities … it doesn’t mean that it’s over,” said Joe Tadie, a theology and philosophy professor at St. Mary’s.

Many officials said they’re seeing more students double majoring or minoring in the liberal arts, too.

The number of English minors at Macalester has more than tripled in the last decade, Tange said.

“The idea that they can choose two things frees them up to choose something like a liberal art,” said Jason Lowrey, vice president of academic affairs at Bethany Lutheran College, adding that students can pursue their passion.

Julian Klein, a University of Northwestern student, is doing that, majoring in theater and intercultural communication with a business minor, adding the communications major because theater “is one of the least stable jobs you can get.”

“I look at [my majors] and say, ‘Where can’t I go?’” Klein said. “I think it is OK for me to pursue these things that I love and not know exactly what I’m going to do with them in my professional life.”

The St. Paul university debuted its Classical Christian Honors College this fall, with courses like “The Ancient World and the Hebrew Scriptures.” Students are studying philosophy, theology and literature ranging from Homer to Shakespeare.

Students pursuing any major can enroll in the 40-credit, three-year program, which satisfies most required general education credits. They can also pursue a second major in Great Books through the new college. Sixteen students are signed up but the program will grow, said Ryan Griffith, dean of the program.

“Institutions like ours recognize that the liberal arts, really both historically and in the present, are valuable for equipping men and women to be good thinkers, critical thinkers and really carry themselves forward in any field of knowledge,” Griffith said.

Kathleen Peter, a senior at Metro State double majoring in English and philosophy, said there’s a big misconception that liberal arts majors don’t get jobs, adding that fellow humanities majors plan to go to graduate school, teach or find employment in something like human resources. She’s still choosing between law school and graduate school for English.