Education, the second-most-popular field among undergraduates in 1991, is one of the few disciplines that shrank over the past two decades, even as the total number of bachelor’s degrees conferred grew by more than 600,000.
Discipline | Number of degrees awarded, 1991 | Number of degrees awarded, 2011 | 20-year change |
Construction trades | 24 | 328 | 1,267% |
Personal and culinary services | 105 | 1,237 | 1,078% |
Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies | 4,315 | 35,968 | 734% |
Natural resources and conservation | 3,101 | 12,799 | 313% |
Communications technologies/technicians and support services | 1,394 | 5,007 | 259% |
Science technologies/technicians | 106 | 373 | 252% |
Homeland security, law enforcement, firefighting, and related | 17,005 | 48,641 | 186% |
Health professions and related programs | 59,887 | 145,793 | 143% |
Legal professions and studies | 1,827 | 4,443 | 143% |
Multi/interdisciplinary studies | 17,903 | 42,508 | 137% |
Biological and biomedical sciences | 40,138 | 91,142 | 127% |
Visual and performing arts | 42,310 | 94,218 | 123% |
Transportation and materials moving | 2,395 | 4,968 | 107% |
Theology and religious vocations | 4,807 | 9,125 | 90% |
Public administration and social-service professions | 14,634 | 27,540 | 88% |
Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies | 4,886 | 9,100 | 86% |
Philosophy and religious studies | 7,338 | 12,864 | 75% |
Psychology | 59,097 | 101,715 | 72% |
Computer and information sciences and support services | 25,410 | 43,586 | 72% |
Family and consumer sciences/human sciences | 13,697 | 22,506 | 64% |
Communication, journalism, and related programs | 51,980 | 83,781 | 61% |
Agriculture, agriculture operations, and related sciences | 10,048 | 15,929 | 59% |
Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics | 13,997 | 21,827 | 56% |
Liberal arts and sciences, general studies, and humanities | 30,655 | 46,835 | 53% |
Physical sciences | 16,397 | 24,584 | 50% |
Business, management, marketing, and related support services | 252,135 | 369,042 | 46% |
History | 24,593 | 35,059 | 43% |
Social sciences | 101,107 | 142,698 | 41% |
Precision production | 31 | 43 | 39% |
Engineering | 63,086 | 77,390 | 23% |
Mathematics and statistics | 14,516 | 17,231 | 19% |
Mechanic and repair technologies/technicians | 200 | 226 | 13% |
Library science | 90 | 96 | 7% |
English language and literature/letters | 51,096 | 52,798 | 3% |
Architecture and related services | 9,811 | 9,934 | 1% |
Engineering technologies and engineering-related fields | 17,145 | 16,375 | -4% |
Education | 113,060 | 106,456 | -6% |
Military technologies and applied science | 145 | 64 | -56% |
Agricultural sciences | 58 | n/a | — |
Marketing operations/marketing and distribution | 1,911 | n/a | — |
Vocational home economics | 1,214 | n/a | — |
Military science, leadership, and operational art | 273 | n/a | — |
Residency programs | 169 | n/a | — |
Unknown/not reported | 13,901 | n/a | — |
Total | 1,107,997 | 1,734,229 | 57% |
Note: Percentages are rounded, but fields are ranked by unrounded percentages. The five disciplines for which no 2011 data are available were recategorized into other disciplines in 2000.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Education Department data
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