I am doing Graduate research on the reasons for declining student interest in the college English major- what is your opinion? Is there a loss of interest because of content, or is it economically driven, or both?

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A combo of both, honestly.

It's sad, but a lot of jobs don't seem to value the skills you develop in the English major. Not as much as we might have been told, at least.

Plus, I feel like the energy to read classic lit from the canon has just died down over the years.

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There is a communication breakdown in society. The focus on that skill has shifted to sound bites and quick social media posts. Thought, discourse and truth have been greatly diminished. Ask a college student why they went to college and I'll bet they say getting a degree, making money, parents made them, before they say learning about xyz. Ask an English major and they'll tell you why they love studying the subject. They value thinking and they are becoming the minority. Of course there are no absolutes, but that is the trend I have seen over the last two decades.

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Both. Reading is hard and most people have to work at it—it’s not instant gratification like watching TikTok. Writing has many rules to follow and kids don’t want to bother when they can easily thumb out a text message that’s understood by their friends. Even though we need better communication skills than ever before, fewer are putting in the effort to do them well.

In short, reading and writing take time and effort to do, and an even longer time and more effort to do really well. In today’s world of instant gratification and microsecond entertainment, English skills are like writing with a chisel and stone tablet—it’s a dying skill.

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I think there are a couple of things going on. One one hand, college is becoming more and more expensive. That goes along with a general trend toward thinking of education as job preparation rather than an end unto itself. The two are mutually reinforcing--you're less likely to pay for a degree in English if it's not seen as a clear road to a particular profession, ESPECIALLY as degrees get more expensive.

At the same time, there's a growing hostility toward education and critical thinking in our society. This isn't solely a Republican/MAGA thing, though obviously there's a lot of overlap and that's the most obvious and cohesive group that's against rational thought. An English degree teaches you to think and reflect, and there's a lot of anti-thought, anti-reflection thought going around right now.

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I think both. My niece wants to major in English, but she asked me what she could do with that degree. I was able to list a few jobs that she was interested in. She doesn’t want to teach because she knows her grandmother and aunt didn’t get paid enough.

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I agree that it’s a combination of both, but I also would guess that the decline in student interest extends across the humanities.

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Thank you all for your replies- very helpful!

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