Approaching high school, a divisive line is drawn between two groups of students. They are not separated by color or sex, but by future pursuit: the science students and the impoverished.
Numerous variables, such as rampant technological advancements, lucrative medicine breakthroughs, and creative technical worldwide substitutes, have bolstered the increase in STEM study amongst students. Young people, more precocious and well-versed than ever (with said rise in technology), are spectating the global race of rapid growth and are suckered into these promising business ventures.
Thus, a discrepant ratio emerges between those who remain seeking degrees in the humanities, and those who embrace this brave new world. Any history (or simply critically-minded) students can comment though, on the danger that is the allure of joining the masses. The staggering interest in the humanities and liberal arts thus points concerns to the scaffold of education itself, and the values that inform the decisions that will architect the future.
April 1st, Fool’s Day, 1976: Apple was founded. Perhaps since then, a flurry of innovation has mechanized the society known today. Since 1990, employment in the STEM field has grown by 79% (Pew Research Center, January 2018). And this is not simply an issue of rising population. As every corner of civilization welcomes digitization, the demand for virtually every occupation within the STEM field has increased to unmatched levels – and it is not slowing down. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to 4.9% growth for all other occupations, STEM-related jobs are projected to grow 10.8% in the decade between 2021 and 2031.
This monstrous growth dominates the very fabric of society. Just as McCarthyism and Soviet Russia seeped into everyday life during the Cold War period, the incessant chatter of natural catastrophe, artificial intelligence, and political madness (now on digital mediums too) has amplified the infrasound that directs the collective mind to become obsessed. People are simultaneously rioting against, and compelled to join the technological movement — all contributing to the disparate wealth and power held by the puppeteers of the invisible hand.
The financial incentives of STEM-related careers provided are perhaps the most persuasive elements influencing the new career ideal. The thrill of breaking new grounds in life-changing drugs or apps that turn celebrities into animals (and vice versa) is not what motivates students to pursue scientific disciplines — as they would likely state in their statements. The possibility of job progression and upward mobility is a well-oiled motivator for young people who dare to dream of a bigger life. Countries invest significantly in STEM education and research to maintain competitive globalization. Nations like South Korea, the United States, and Germany have made significant expenditures in STEM education – as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports. The underlying motive is an exponentially growing demand for higher STEM research that will further the country’s economic and technological advancement.
For young people now though, it is perhaps not just a career ideal. Helaine Olen wrote in her book ‘Pound Foolish that families in the 2000s put 75% of their income toward necessities, as compared to the 50% that families in 1973 put toward the same items. With the ever-inflating cost of living, survival has become treacherous. People are denied basic healthcare, a house of their own; and even the choice to have children, for lack of ability to care for them adequately with the increased competition – according to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, the number of international students has risen by 70% in the last decade. Is it extreme to desire a life beyond being able to afford necessities? Thus, a career in STEM, with its promising salary margins and consistently-broadening availability of quality work, has seemingly become the capstone to the so-called ‘American Dream’.
73% of Americans say that a STEM education is more essential than Humanities (Kricorian et al, 2020). The core values of humanity are receding in a society that is becoming laser-focused on pragmatism and quantifiable results. The National Centre of Education Statistics reveals that a vast majority of humanities and social science disciplines experienced a decline of over 10% in the annual number of degrees awarded (Mullin, 2019). Skills such as critical thinking, cultural awareness, and empathy are perpetrated as unemployable; some argue that it has become an elitist and discriminatory institution that upholds the decay of a bygone society.
Going against the argument that perhaps the Humanities have simply become obsolete, the conundrum in taking this particular stance is that its benefits are unable to be reduced to promising statistics. Looking at ourworldindata.org, the smallpox vaccine eradicated death rates from 7.6% in 1776, proving its validity; yet little can be said about the Humanities. Toward the end of 2012, Shakespeare was dropped from the compulsory curriculum of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) of New Zealand in favor of students ‘critically examining Twilight and The Hunger Games series’ (stuff.co.nz). Widely regarded as the greatest writer who has ever lived, not even his work could be defended against the tirades of the contemporary era solely driven by instant gratification.
At a time of furthering political divide, of sensationalist capital and action over thought – the fixed binary of STEM subjects can not take precedence over the scrupulous and dynamic study of Humanities. In the contemporary, whole, entirely insular communities created by the internet have furthered the chasm between people by people. Blithe to suffering and all participants of artificial activism, teenagers have become flag-wavers for apathy with little understanding of the total upheaval of self to the tyrannical social media; whose outpour of indiscriminate, stimulating, and oftentimes traumatic content has effectively vapourised any ability for young people to develop personhood. Eli Pariser’s ‘The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You’ details the refined ‘impression of narrow self-interest’ created by the Internet. Most exemplified by the ‘blindsiding’ victory of President Trump, it unveiled the divide amongst whole communities; fully-developed adults who are incapable of coming to any consensus without resorting to barbarity, and which is the only world most Generation Z knows.
Maniacal and deranged as Hitler is presented in retrospect, the death of six million Jews was passed as German nationalism due to centralized singular means of media. Inconsequential as it may seem, the study of humanities undeniably provides an all-encompassing view of civilization that propels itself forward.
Fundamentally, it is the framework of education itself that lends to the diversion away from the dispensary of Humanities study. An unequal ecology is realized in educational institutions when STEM research frequently sustains more priority and investment. According to Butler (2022), the liberal arts faculty are increasingly more constrained, where the department experiences diminished staff posts at a disproportionate rate to their science counterpart, undergraduates are enrolled in consistently larger courses, and graduate students are living on wages ‘that barely rise to poverty levels’. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) had an overall budget of $180 million, writes Christopher J. Newfield of the Humanities Commons in ‘The Humanities Crisis is a Funding Crisis’. By contrast, the National Institute for Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce has a 2022 budget of $1.5 billion, while the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a budget of $8.84 billion. That is a difference of ten billion, one hundred and sixty million between two branches of STEM with the entirety of the Humanities. This difference in investment creates the belief that STEM is more esteemed and of higher importance, while the development of soft skills within the Humanities and liberal arts are less essential. A study done by CNBC which surveyed graduates of most and least regretted degrees, stated that non-STEM majors do not provide marketable skills which translate to job security, in the same manner that having a degree in STEM automatically bestows. This disparity between the two educational studies, despite having a push-and-pull effect on the general well-being of mankind, demonstrates the shifting societal emphasis on industrialization, which creates a toxic cycle of dwindling participation rate with questions of the value of upholding a Humanities education at all.
Of instant gratification, of lurid conflict, of fulsome nationalist promises. Between STEM and Humanities studies, their inequity has become a reflection of a society moving at an intemperate rate, eaten up by growing profit margins and unfledged global competition. The foundations on which this new age is built must be reexamined without apartheid; otherwise, the martyrdom of criticality, rigor, and ethics holds a grim step backward into authoritarian delirium.