Changes in college degree emphasis

I ran across some graphs of Department of Education data today published by Casey Research.  It provides some visual comparison of interest in "softer" degrees in the liberal arts versus more technical degrees in the sciences.   These numbers represent graduates, so in most cases the student likely selected their majors 4 years prior to the completion of the baccalaureate.

Clearly the Woodstock generation of the late '60s swung the curve up, almost doubling graduates (especially English). This had a severe dip in the '70/80s  and then a brief bump (for reasons unknown to me) in the early '90s.

Interestingly, the hard sciences start rather low and then decline!

Math shows similar tendencies with a loss of 2/3 over 35 years!

Engineering showed a big bump in the later '80s, but has since declined to a more "normal" 6% graduate rate.

And as may be expected, business degrees became very popular in the early '70 - matching the equal decline in the liberal arts - and still accounts for over 20% of graduates.

 Of course, most degrees in business are like a "starters permit" and qualify one for everything from a night manager at McDonalds to the start of a career track on Wall Street.   And my experience is that many successful business professionals gained their education in the liberal arts (such as me - political science).

However, the slope of the graphs from the upper left to the lower right in many areas do not indicate a good forecast, especially in the science categories.  Of course, a number of majors are missing from these displays - but they are food for thought.

My close colleague, LyndiCoop wrote to tell me that much of the increase is in health and medical fields.  Students are fighting to get qualified for pre-med even before college.