A recent study by the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University using state of Texas data found widely varying returns on investment across graduate degree programs.
Another study by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity found that about a third of federal Pell Grant and student loan funding supports degree programs that do not pay off for graduates in terms of earnings. When factoring in students’ counterfactual earnings—what they would have earned without a degree—in addition to degree costs, the study concludes that undergraduate majors in visual and performing arts typically leave students financially worse off than if they never went to college.
Higher education has long pointed to economic mobility as one of our primary contributions to the public good, and it seems fair to ask us to prove it. Yet by focusing on job placement and earnings after graduation, we move away from measures of educational quality in favor of an emphasis on subject matter. This is not a question of quality, because the results are consistent for all types of credentials, from technical colleges to elite universities. Not surprisingly, health care, STEM and business programs wind up on top as the most lucrative degrees to pursue, and programs in religious and cultural studies, education, public service, and especially the arts represent the most precarious degrees.
For clarity, we are no longer talking about how these degrees are perceived by the consumer (students and their families). In the current environment, what these programs are facing is the possible elimination of federal financial aid for their students. A proposed rule related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (open for public comment through May 20) outlines the details of the new accountability framework that ties programs’ future eligibility for federal student aid to graduates’ average earning outcomes.
The insistence that higher education is ineffective and too expensive is a long-standing and bipartisan refrain. One might ask, for example, how Barack Obama’s derision of degrees in art history in 2014 differs substantively from Donald Trump’s new earnings test that threatens to end financial aid funding for arts programs.
But there is a difference. In this new scenario, institutions with billion-dollar-plus endowments might still be able to offer enough institutional financial aid to keep arts programs alive, but most colleges and universities will not be able to support students with high economic need to pursue degrees in any subjects that do not lead directly to careers with high earnings. The arts are in grave danger because many programs essentially offer professional degrees without linear pathways to specific professions—or, better put, professional artists do not generally begin their careers with high salaries. Setting a timer on earnings by program poses provocative questions: Do we need arts degrees in higher education? Do we need professional artists?
Here is the paradox of blacklisting arts degrees. The Bureau of Economic Analysis in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s latest report on the arts showed that between 2019 and 2023, arts and cultural production industries (including performing arts, museums, design services and fine arts education) continuously outperformed the broader economy in terms of annual percentage increase in GDP. In 2023, arts and cultural industries accounted for 4.2 percent of GDP, or $1.17 trillion, and 5.4 million jobs nationwide.
In addition, public opinion polling shows that a diverse, representative sample of the U.S. population believes that the arts add value to their communities (86 percent), can support economic development (72 percent) and build social cohesion (72 percent). Nine out of 10 of those responding to the poll also stated that every K–12 student should receive arts education, and a majority approve of government funding for arts and culture organizations.
More to the point, it is difficult to conceive of a future without the formative guidance that the arts provide. There is, granted, some sense to measuring the outcomes of arts education by calculating average graduate earnings, for the simple reason that higher education requires substantial investments by students and their families, as well as by taxpayers. Let us think carefully, however, about the ramifications of eliminating educational opportunities for subjects with transformational power. The future does not just happen; rather, it is directed by our collective attitudes, decisions and actions.
In his book Robot-Proof, the linguist and university president Joseph E. Aoun insists that higher education must prepare students broadly, through lifelong education, for “robot-proof” careers. Artificial intelligence has us all reconsidering our economic assumptions. How much will the federal government actually save by preventing students from developing their sensitivities to the world, and how much will society lose in terms of our capacity to discover, create and know through our senses?
QA Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing students for the changing dynamics of the workforce, has developed a framework around essential employability qualities, including motivation and initiative, professionalism and responsibility, learning and adaptability, critical thinking, communication, teamwork, digital literacy, and creativity and problem-solving. Similarly, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has identified eight essential career-readiness competencies: in self-development, professionalism, leadership, equity and inclusion, critical thinking, communication, teamwork, and technology.
The World Economic Forum’s 2025 “The Future of Jobs” report, furthermore, found that top skills needed in the years ahead include resilience, flexibility and agility; motivation and self-awareness; leadership and social influence; analytical thinking; curiosity and lifelong learning; technological literacy; and creative thinking. Compare all of these skills with the shared learning outcomes identified by member institutions of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design: among them, creative thinking, critical thinking, collaboration, ethical reasoning, inquiry and analysis, inclusion, and multimodal literacy.
I suspect even Claude can find the through line here. Some of the skills our students will need—in fact, need now—will require knowledge, but most of them require discernment, relationality, a sense of values and the ability to interact with the world through our bodies as well as our intellect. Increasingly, students must develop what Aneesh Raman and Ryan Roslansky have dubbed the 5 C’s—communication, compassion, curiosity, courage and creativity—or what Marty Neumeier calls metaskills for the robotic age: feeling, learning, seeing, dreaming and making.
Such enduring—indeed, irreplaceable—human skills have always been the foundation of an arts education. Every artist known to the world uses these skills on a daily basis in their work, and every arts faculty knows the importance of developing them in our students.
If we are straightforward about it, we will admit that none of us know the future of employment. In the meantime, anyone with the privilege of serving at the turning points (hiring managers, business leaders, lawmakers and educators, among others) should support the development of these irreplaceable human skills. Fortunately, the benefit of this approach, the fringe, if you will, is the sustainability of humanity itself.
Brian Harlan is dean and professor at the Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University.
