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LANSING -- Universities across the state are restructuring their humanities programs amidst financial pressures.
Fine arts programs, as well as world language instruction, are included on the list of those cut.
Declining enrollment and budgetary restrictions among public universities in Michigan, as well as the rest of the nation, have pressed faculty and administrators in the humanities to repurpose programs suffering from low enrollment.
Data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics revealed that the number of bachelor's degrees in humanities awarded by four-year universities declined from 16.8% in the 2010-11 academic year to 12.8% in 2020-21.
And a census by the Modern Language Association showed a 16.6% decline in total college and university enrollments in languages other than English between the fall of 2016 and 2021.
Even so, "we're adding about three times as more (academic) programs than cutting them," said Michigan Association of State Universities Chief Executive Officer Daniel Hurley.
Many programs being cut this year are in the humanities.
"There's no doubt some of these programs are subsidized from revenues elsewhere in the institution, but there comes a point where the enrollments might be so low that their programs need to be cut," said Hurley.
Oakland University is one of the institutions adversely impacted by declining enrollment.
According to Oakland, its enrollment was highest in the fall of 2015 with around 16,800 students. In subsequent years ,a gradual decline occurred with a sharper dip starting in the fall of 2020, resulting in around 12,800 enrolled as of last fall.