Does Cutting Philosophy Help A University’s Budget?
“More than a year after its faculty cuts, enrollment at Emporia State has fallen 12.5 percent even though enrollment at other public institutions in the state rose 2 percent.”
That’s David C.K. Curry, professor of philosophy at SUNY Potsdam (where the philosophy major program was eliminated last year), writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Emporia State is another university that recently cut its philosophy department and laid off faculty across the humanities (previously).
Professor Curry recounts the problems with how philosophy and other programs were cut at Potsdam, and discusses the trend of making such cuts at various colleges and universities.
A look at institutions that have cut philosophy programs does not provide evidence that doing so helps with undergraduate enrollment. While some real research on this would be welcome (APA?), I looked at five US schools that cut philosophy in 2022 or earlier—Baker University, Cabrini University, Carthage College, University of Nebraska-Kearney, and Western Oregon University—and at all of them, undergraduate enrollment is lower now than it was before they cut philosophy. (Of course, it is possible be that the enrollment declines, while continuing, have slowed—I didn’t check that.)
Combined with the relatively low costs typical of philosophy departments and the service teaching they tend to do, it seems unlikely that cutting philosophy programs does much to benefit college and university budgets.
And all of this is leaving aside other problems with these kinds of cuts. As Professor Curry notes, they play into the misconceptions that “the only justifiable purpose for higher education is to get people jobs” and that “one can’t get a good-paying job with a degree in philosophy, art history, French, sculpture, or dance.”
He says:
The liberal-arts model promotes education, not just for career but also for citizenship and life… Common sense says that gutted public institutions are probably not particularly attractive to prospective students and their parents. But perhaps these cuts will have the financial benefits the administrators, consultants, and legislators are gambling on. Maybe once the immediate outrage calms down, enrollments will rebound. But at what cost will that possibility of success come?
You can read Professor Curry’s essay here (ungated version here).
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