As a discipline, English experienced its halcyon days in the 1970s when it commanded roughly 7.6% of college majors nationwide. Humanities majors overall comprised 30% of the national student body. As a college student in the 1980s, no one, it seemed, even considered the idea that English could be anything less than a thriving, vibrant major with a wide variety of classes that filled too quickly, famous visiting writers, frequent open-mike readings, and a future open to any number of possibilities.
These days the English major is facing big challenges, and some fear it may be on the road to extinction. Its percentage of students has fallen to 3.9%, while other majors, such as business, have seen a steep increase. This is part of a larger trend. Humanities majors, overall, have fallen to less than 16% of the student body. While not dead yet, or even moribund, the humanities are in trouble.
Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, The Guardian published a story about students at Montclair State University (N.J.) who held a mock-funeral for a number of majors threatened by their school’s administration. A mock-tombstone mock-memorialized anthropology, writing studies, languages, history, sociology, religion, and English, among several others. It was placed outside the humanities building to draw attention to protest the administration’s plan to combine programs into large schools, essentially wiping out the original paths of study. “I coordinated this demonstration because I have dreams that cannot be monetized,” student protest leader Miranda Kawiecki said.
Why the humanities are failing right now is not entirely clear. Likely the phenomenon is the sum of multiple stressors—video game narratives, the predominance of podcasts, cable and then streaming TV, and the deprioritizing of literature at the secondary level (“teaching to the test”). Attention spans have been shortened, so the theory goes, in students who grew up on memes, 30-second TikTok reels, and three-minute YouTube videos.
But there is also a pervasive belief that affects how students and parents talk about the English major—and humanities overall—about career viability: the Barista Myth. The myth is nicely summed up in the opening paragraph of the essay “The Myth of the English Major Barista” by Robert Matz, a professor of English at George Mason University, published in Inside Higher Ed in 2016:
The old joke about studying English went, “Would you like fries with that major?” I haven’t heard that joke in years. Barista has replaced fast food worker as the career of choice for warning against the perils of majoring in English.
Where the myth started is not known, but it is pervasive. Even professors outside the discipline buy into the misapprehension. Virtually all literature that aims to set the record straight deals directly with the misperception of the weak English employment market. An excerpt from Nathan Heller’s “The End of the English Major” published in 2023 in The New Yorker ostensibly illustrates the most commonly held perception of the humanities major:
Luiza Monti, a senior, had come to college as a well-rounded graduate of a charter school in Phoenix. She had fallen in love with Italy during a summer exchange and fantasized about Italian language and literature, but was studying business—specifically, an interdisciplinary major called Business (Language and Culture), which incorporated Italian coursework. “It’s a safeguard thing,” Monti, who wore earrings from a jewelry business founded by her mother, a Brazilian immigrant, told me. “There’s an emphasis on who is going to hire you.”
This perception is so well trodden that a Google A.I. summary of the search term “English major” states it plainly: “While English degrees can lead to diverse career paths, some students may choose fields they believe will be more easily marketable.” While a Google summary is not the authoritative word on the subject, the perception is so common, and the belief is so widespread, that artificial intelligence software cites it as the central concern for studying English in college.
The prejudice against English as a viable career-oriented degree is not an entirely new phenomenon. Back in the ’80s, my own father was openly irritated with my choice of major until one of his coworkers told him that English majors wrote great memos and business letters.
The irony of the Barista Myth is that there are plenty of facts only a Google search away that disproves it. The English degree is a career degree, as are most college degrees. For instance, information on the job market comes from three main resources:
Both publications offer qualitative and quantitative, fact-based job information about English as a job-friendly discipline.
Probably the most useful single source in this regard is the Report on English Majors’ Career Preparation and Outcomes, a survey of career outcomes of English majors, compiled by the Modern Language Association (MLA). The Report also details a series of practical recommendations (engage alumni networks, for instance, or develop localized career preparation, among others).
Most especially, the Report recommends, “Faculty members learn how to use the best, most authoritative data on salaries and career outcomes and circulate them to students, parents, public audiences, and internal institutional audiences” (3). This is an excellent pitch opening.
And, in fact, the document begins its “Introduction” with “English departments today must contend with the persistent misconception that their majors have dim career prospects” (4).
Specifically, the Report (table, 86) finds
The Report also details the many career paths of English B.A. holders:
In addition, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, a longstanding publication of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, lists the average salary of English majors at $60K per year. The Humanities Indicator found that in 2018 “the median earnings of full-time workers holding an undergraduate degree in English literature and language and a graduate degree in any field was $65,851. For majors in all fields who hold a graduate degree, it was $70,917.”
More tellingly in this context, The National Humanities Alliance found the unemployment rate for humanities rate was 2.17%, which is only slightly above the national average of 2.3%.
Perhaps most importantly, The Humanities Indicator reports, “91% of humanities majors with an advanced degree expressed satisfaction.”
All told, the English major, and humanities majors overall, offer employment stability and employment prosperity in the same measure as all but the engineering specialists. Now, the trick is to get this information out.
— Russell Brickey, Independent Scholar, Professional Writing Graduate Certificate Program Student, Youngstown State University
