If the University of Chicago won't defend the humanities, who will?

University of Chicago’s Finances and Motives

• Several commenters argue the cuts stem less from ideology than from mismanagement: weak endowment returns relative to peers, conservative investment allocation, and heavy borrowing to expand STEM research (molecular engineering, quantum science).
• Chicago faces a large structural deficit; some note that even big one-off asset sales (e.g., research centers) are unlikely to solve underlying issues.
• Others see the move as part of a broader shift toward treating universities like corporations, using cost-accounting models that make low-enrollment doctoral programs look indefensible on paper.

Humanities vs. STEM and Credential Inflation

• Many describe the older academic world (especially in the ’60s–’70s) as one of growth and abundant tenure-track jobs, now replaced by shrinking departments, vicious competition, and “publish or perish” across both humanities and STEM.
• A recurring theme: college as an overgeneralized “ticket to the middle class,” leading to inflated credentials, weakened standards, and devalued degrees—especially from lower-tier schools and less vocational majors.
• Some praise STEM as an economic equalizer with clearer non-academic career paths; others push back that STEM fields now share many of the same structural problems as the humanities.

Value and Limits of Humanities Education

• Defenders argue humanities cultivate critical thinking, close reading, perspective-taking, and the ability to question what problems are worth solving—skills many say are crucial in tech and business.
• Skeptics question whether humanities actually teach independent thought, citing ideological conformity, rote theory, and jargon-filled writing that seems detached from ordinary life.
• There is debate over whether humanities research is genuinely rigorous or closer to fashion-driven discourse; some compare it unfavorably to mathematics, others say the comparison misunderstands the humanities’ more “art-like” nature.

Humanities PhDs, Careers, and Opportunity Cost

• Multiple posters stress the ethical issue of recruiting fully funded PhD students into fields with almost no tenure-track jobs, effectively consuming their prime working years with little economic payoff.
• Some counter that many humanities PhDs treat scholarship as a calling, not a career move, and report higher life satisfaction than STEM PhDs stuck in miserable postdocs.
• Suggested reforms include smaller, less frequent cohorts, re-centering on teaching (especially in high schools), and decoupling “producing new knowledge” from every academic job.

Politics, Culture War, and Public Discourse

• Some blame “oligarchic” pressure to turn universities into trade schools and attack both humanities and science funding.
• Others fault humanities themselves for retreating into insular theory and abandoning public engagement, leaving a vacuum filled by mass-market figures and culture-war pundits.
• There is disagreement over whether current humanities departments still defend the broader civilizational and democratic project, or have morphed into something narrower and less defensible.