Bachelor’s Degree Movers

As industries change and interests shift, some bachelor’s degrees grow more popular while others become less so. We already saw how the rankings changed over the decades. Now here’s the degrees that have changed the most since 1995.

Biggest Shifts for Bachelor’s Degrees

Comparing 1995 to 2017

+150%

Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies

+100%

These degrees became more popular.

Computer and information sciences

Health professions and related programs

+50%

Homeland security, law enforcement, and firefighting

Legal professions and studies

Communication, journalism, and related programs

Biological and biomedical sciences

Mathematics and statistics

Engineering

Visual and performing arts

0%

Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies

Transportation and materials moving

Philosophy and religious studies

Liberal arts and sciences and humanities

Social sciences and history

These degrees became less popular.

Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics

Engineering technologies

Architecture and related services

−50%

English language and literature/letters

Education

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

+150%

Parks, recreation, leisure,

and fitness studies

+100%

Computer and info. sciences

Health professions

+50%

Law enforcement, firefighting

Legal professions

Communication, journalism

Biological and biomedical

Mathematics and statistics

Engineering

Visual and performing arts

0%

Ethnic, cultural studies

Transportation, materials

Philosophy and religion

Liberal arts and sciences

Social sciences and history

Foreign languages, lit.

Engineering technologies

Architecture

−50%

English language and lit.

Education

The data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics. Again, these are the degrees that showed the most change rather than degrees that were most popular. See the rankings chart for the latter. For each time segment, I calculated percentage and compared it against the percentage for 1995.

Parks and rec is killing it, more than doubling since 1995. Education and English not so much, each with a decline of about half, which I have a feeling has a lot do with more options.

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