Last year a report from Harvard University set off alarm bells because it showed that the proportion of bachelor degree graduates in the United States who had majored in the humanities fell from 14 percent to 7 percent.
Even elite universities like Harvard itself have experienced a similar decrease. Moreover, the decline seems to have become steeper in recent years. There is talk of a crisis in the humanities.
I don't know enough about the humanities as a whole to comment on what is causing enrollments to fall. Perhaps many humanities disciplines are not seen as likely to lead to fulfilling careers, or to any careers at all. Maybe that's because some disciplines are failing to communicate to outsiders what they do and why it matters.