An arts degree won’t lead to a well-paid job, right? Wrong

There aren’t many conversation topics more boring than the demise of humanities enrolments and arts degrees. What makes it so distinctly dull is that no one seriously contests it. When one mother wrote recently in this masthead about the mix of pride and fear she felt when her daughter enrolled in arts, the deluge of comments showed just how deeply her worries resonated, especially with other parents. A truth universally acknowledged, in short.

Except that it isn’t true: there’s remarkably little evidence supporting the idea that liberal arts graduates aren’t employable, or that the skills and values learned in humanities subjects aren’t useful. So, to misquote a well-known playwright, we come to praise humanities, not to bury them.

The perceived wisdom about the humanities – that they do not lead to well-paid jobs – is not supported by the facts.Credit: Peter Braig

It’s true that the numbers of students studying English and history are down by 30 and 36 per cent over 10 years to 2021, according to the federal Department of Education. Against that, only 1.5 per cent of students changed degree plans after the fees for arts degrees were raised by 117 per cent in 2020. Liberal arts graduates are not markedly less successful than others in getting jobs, and their starting salaries are about the same, too. Recent studies from the US report that people with the critical-thinking skills taught in arts and social sciences often end in more highly paid jobs than their counterparts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Arts degrees teach precisely the problem-solving skills and mindsets needed in this uncertain, rapidly changing world. The 2023 Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum has a list of the most-wanted skills in the next five years: problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, tolerating ambiguity and strong communication skills. The skills students learn in humanities subjects match this list nearly perfectly.

If the humanities have a problem, it seems largely to be one of branding: nobody thinks they’re useful. Recruiters and employers keep emphasising functional competencies when they hire despite saying they want problem-solving skills, and don’t seem to appreciate how arts degrees train students in the most valued mindsets and capabilities. What’s more, students have trouble seeing their own skills clearly and aren’t sure how to explain them on résumés and in job interviews. Meanwhile, there’s a worry among arts faculties that focusing on what’s “job-ready” about the liberal arts will diminish their intellectual and human values.

The most important challenge facing businesses and not-for-profits right now is learning to navigate uncertainty and fast change. Companies do best when they’re purposefully curious, bring multiple perspectives to a problem, tolerate ambiguity and challenge existing beliefs by seeking new information. The humanities train students to regard uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity as core human values, not conditions to avoid or eliminate.

Training in arts subjects focuses on incomplete knowledge that changes over time. Literature, art history and languages teach us that the meanings of stories change when you shift point of view and narrative techniques. History uses counterfactuals and archival absences to make sense of past events. Philosophy teaches logical thinking and ethics. Anthropology makes compelling stories from evidence that appears disjointed. Sociology and politics reveal hidden power dynamics. A deep and inquisitive study of the humanities exposes students to complex problems that need agile, complex but clear solutions.

There are plenty of arts graduates who’ve built successful business careers. To take just one example, the incoming vice chancellor at ANU is the Australian anthropologist Genevieve Bell. After her PhD in cultural anthropology at Stanford she went on to lead a UX (user experience) group at chip-maker Intel.

Humanities training creates a deep foundation on which other skills can be layered. Humanities graduates can bridge the gap between arts and business with work experience and some form of micro-credential, which they get by doing a short course on statistics, data analytics, UX, problem-solving, programming and so on. At McKinsey Australia, arts graduates attend a course on business essentials to develop numeracy and financial literacy. At Morgan Stanley, new hires are completely retrained, regardless of their undergraduate degree.

So, should nervous parents chill out if their kids do arts? Emphatically, yes. There’s an enormous opportunity here for companies to build more imaginative, curious and diverse teams. We call on employers to pay attention to the problem-solving skills in arts and humanities degrees, just as they do for business and engineering students.

And we look to arts students to double down on their core skills and explain them well. Humanities graduates are a precious and underutilised resource. Let’s make that the truth universally acknowledged.

Sophie Gee is a professor of English at Princeton University and Robert McLean is a co-author of Bulletproof Problem Solving and The Imperfectionists.

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