Move Over STEM. Humanities Degrees Are Poised For A Comeback Thanks To AI.

In January 2023, after four combat tours and 11 years in the U.S. Air Force, Jeremy Crider left active duty on disability. By August, he’d enrolled at the University of Arizona in Tucson with a long-term plan. Having managed athletic facilities in the Air Force, he aimed to earn a B.S. in business administration and then a Ph.D. in sports management, with the goal of ultimately working in the field.

Three years later, Crider’s ultimate career goals haven’t changed, but his major has. He expects to graduate in May with a B.A. in applied humanities (with a concentration in business administration) and a B.S. in creative intelligence and innovation, the latter a program run through the school’s honors college that allows him to work with community groups on problem-solving. “For me, humanities made sense because with AI, learning the human side of business became much more valuable than just understanding the numbers,” says Crider, now 36. “One hundred percent, I feel like this is going to give me an edge.”

His senior thesis for the honors program focuses on developing a framework to help sports teams make decisions that account not only for costs and profits, but also for their own identities and those of their communities—something that could have a longer-term impact on the value of a franchise and its fan base.

Crider’s educational swerve could be a harbinger of a comeback for humanities majors after more than a decade of steep decline. Already, a handful of schools are seeing growth, while national reports suggest the number of students majoring in fields such as English and history is bottoming out.

Arizona isn’t the only university bucking the national trend. At the University of California, Berkeley, the top public university in Forbes’ 2027 college rankings, declared majors in the Division of Arts & Humanities increased 55% in the six years prior to May 2026, with English majors up 92%.