Part II. Undergraduate and Graduate Education in the Humanities Section A. Undergraduate Education

NOTE TO READERS: Please include the following reference when citing data from this page: "American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Indicators, http://HumanitiesIndicators.org." Print Section

Indicator II-1 Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities

Indicator II-2 Disciplinary Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities

Indicator II-3 Institutional Distribution of Undergraduate Humanities Degrees

Indicator II-4 Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities

Indicator II-5 Gender Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities

Indicator II-6 Most Frequently Taken College Courses

Indicator II-7 Postsecondary Course-Taking in Languages Other than English (OTE)

Indicator II-8 Humanities Students’ Scores on the Graduate Record Exam

Indicator II-9 GRE English Literature Subject Test Scores

The following indicators seek to describe the character and gauge the vitality of humanities undergraduate education in the contemporary United States. The first several indicators chart the number of humanities bachelor’s degrees granted over the last several decades and to whom. Where appropriate, the data for the humanities are accompanied by comparable data on other fields in order to provide a sense of the relative performance of the academic humanities at the undergraduate level. These indicators reveal that the academic humanities have grown appreciably since a low point in the mid-1980s but have not regained the prominence in the university that they enjoyed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They also demonstrate that although gender parity has been largely achieved the percentage of humanities degrees awarded to minority students is still disproportionately small.

Degree information, while plentiful and reliable, cannot fully capture the influence of the humanities on young people over the course of their college careers. This section draws on additional data about what all students, not just humanities majors, study in college.

Two indicators in this section report on trends in college course-taking. A key source of such data is the transcript studies that form part of the longitudinal studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Education of the high school classes of 1972, 1982, and 1992 (a fourth study, of the class of 2004, is currently underway; however, because several years must pass before comprehensive information on college course-taking can be compiled and because of the time-consuming nature of the collection process, no additional data of this kind will be available for some time). Another important source of course-taking data is the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) periodic survey of enrollment in postsecondary language courses.

Standardized tests are not nearly as prominent a feature of postsecondary life as they are in America’s elementary, middle, and high schools. the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment measure at regular intervals younger students’ mastery of reading (see Indicator I-1, Reading Competency among School-Age Children) and writing (see Indicator I-2, Writing Proficiency) and their knowledge of subjects such as history (see Indicator I-3, Knowledge of U.S. History). No comparable regular assessment of postsecondary student achievement exists. The Graduate Record Examination (GRE), which is taken by students who wish to enroll in graduate school, is the best available measure of college students’ mastery of such core humanistic competencies as verbal reasoning and analytical writing. Through its Subject Test program, the GRE also provides a measure of student knowledge of English literature. Although the GRE is a valuable source of data, it has a number of significant limitations as a measure of national collegiate achievement in the humanities; these are discussed in the narratives accompanying the GRE-related indicators.

Indicator II-1	Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities
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Updated (12/11/2012) with data for academic year 2010 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010). Also expanded with data on “second majors” in the humanities. **An error in the calculation of the share of bachelor’s degree recipients completing “second” majors in the humanities was discovered 01/02/2013. The original figures cited were substantial overstatements. The narrative has been revised to reflect the true shares.**

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The last four decades have been a roller-coaster ride for the undergraduate humanities.1 As Figure II-1a demonstrates, the 1966–1971 period was one of steadily increasing numbers of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities that reached a high point in 1971. But as the 1970s progressed, this trend reversed sharply. The number of degree completions dropped as steadily as it had grown in the previous decade, so that by the early 1980s the humanities were awarding less than half as many bachelor’s degrees as they had in the early 1970s. By the late 1980s the situation had begun to improve, and in the early years of the following decade bachelor’s degree numbers crested again, reaching 78% of their 1971 high. After a modest depression toward the end of the 1990s, degree completion numbers increased throughout the 2000s, although 2010 saw a slight decline. When standardized National Science Foundation (NSF) disciplinary categories are used to count humanities bachelor’s degrees for 2010, the resulting number of awards (122,222) is close to that recorded during the banner days of the 1970s. When the National Center for Educational Statistics’(NCES) Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) is used, however, the number of degree awards in the humanities (185,613) is appreciably higher than the 1971 zenith. (For an explanation of the differences between the two disciplinary classification systems, see the Note on the Data Used to Construct Degree-Related Indicators.) For an inventory of the specific degree programs that together constitute the academic humanities as they are conceptualized by the Humanities Indicators, see the NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog.)

Figure II-1a, Full Size Supporting Data

Along with the drop in absolute numbers of humanities bachelor’s degrees that occurred over the course of the 1970s and early 1980s, the humanities experienced a substantial decline in their share of all bachelor’s degrees. Although the number of humanities degree completions increased thereafter, so did the total number of bachelor’s degrees awarded. Consequently, the humanities’ share of all bachelor’s degrees remained well below the 1970s high. When degrees are counted using the NSF’s categories, the humanities’ share of bachelor’s degrees in 2010, 7.6%, was less than half of the 1967 high. Although CIP-based degree counts (which do the best job of capturing degrees for all disciplines within the humanities, as that term is used by the Humanities Indicators) are available only as far back as 1987, the trend line closely corresponds to that constructed using the NSF’s disciplinary categories. When CIP categories are used, humanities degrees represented 11.5% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2010.

In 2010 the share of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities (11.5%) was approximately 19 percentage points smaller than that for the sciences (Figure II-1b). The humanities also awarded a substantially smaller proportion of bachelor’s degrees than the business and management field, which produced 21.5% of all such degrees.

Figure II-1b, Full Size Supporting Data

The number of students who complete a “second major” in the humanities (i.e., a degree in a humanities discipline earned at the same time as another degree in a non-humanities field or a different humanities discipline) has risen steadily since 2001, the year for which NCES first collected data on such degrees (Figure II-1c). In 2010, 22,709 humanities second majors were completed by undergraduates at U.S. institutions of higher learning. This figure represents a 72% increase over the 2001 level. In 2010, second majors in the humanities were completed by approximately 1.4% of bachelor’s degree recipients, up from 1.1% in 2001.

Figure II-1c, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-2	Disciplinary Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities
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Updated (12/12/2012) with data for academic year 2010 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010).

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From 1987 (the first year for which data are available by detailed disciplinary classification) through 2010, the shares of all humanities bachelor’s degrees produced by the different humanities disciplines changed little. (For an inventory of the specific degree programs included in the broad disciplinary categories of the humanities accounted for in this indicator, see the NSF and CIP Discipline Code Catalog.) In 2010, English degrees represented the greatest share, amounting to approximately 28% of humanities bachelor’s degrees (Figure II-2). Archeology awarded the smallest share, 0.1%. At 2%, the share of all humanities degrees awarded in ethnic/gender/cultural studies was also small. Although scholarly activity in these subject areas increased over the period,1 students doing work in them continued to receive their degrees in more-traditional humanities disciplines such as history and English.

Figure II-2, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-3	Institutional Distribution of Undergraduate Humanities Degrees
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Updated (12/12/2012) with data for academic year 2010 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010).

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In 2010, the nation’s master’s/comprehensive postsecondary education institutions and its research universities were the two largest producers of humanities undergraduate degrees, with each category of institution responsible for approximately a third of such degrees (Figure II-3a; this indicator uses an NSF-standardized version of the Carnegie Foundation’s system for classifying institutions of higher education). Doctoral institutions bestowed 13.3% of all humanities bachelor’s degrees, while just under 20% of humanities degrees were earned at baccalaureate institutions. For almost every institutional type the share of humanities degrees awarded was similar to the type’s share of all bachelor’s degrees awarded, with the exception of the “specialized, tribal, and not classified” grouping1 and institutions classified as “baccalaureate/liberal arts I.” The latter are selective undergraduate institutions awarding at least 40% of their degrees in the liberal arts. These schools accounted for less than 4% of all degrees, yet they generated slightly more than 8% of humanities degrees.

Figure II-3a, Full Size Supporting Data

While they produce a modest share of all humanities degrees, these same selective liberal arts institutions are distinctive in terms of the concentration of humanities degree earners among their graduates (Figure II-3b). In academic year 2010, approximately a quarter of all degrees bestowed by these schools were in the humanities. All of the other institutional types conferred 10–12% of their degrees in humanities disciplines (with the exception of specialized, tribal, and unclassified institutions, which awarded 2.4% of their degrees in the field).

Figure II-3b, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-4	Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities
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Updated (3/6/2013) with data for academic year 2010 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010).

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Between 1995 and 2000, the share of humanities bachelor’s degrees awarded to students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups rose steadily for a total increase of approximately three percentage points (Figure II-4a). Over the next decade, the share grew approximately 1.5 percentage points. In 2010, the percentage of humanities degrees awarded to these students, 17.6%, was similar to the percentage in the combined science fields, as well as in health/medical sciences and business. Among the various academic fields, the share in the social service professions awarded to these students, 36.6%, was the largest, while the shares in the physical sciences (11.6%) and arts (13.4%) were the smallest. Throughout the 1995–2010 period, the humanities’ share of bachelor’s degrees awarded to such students closely tracked that for all fields combined. (For an explanation of how these percentages were calculated, see the Note on the Calculation of Shares of Degrees Awarded to Members of Traditionally Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Groups. For a point of comparison, see the Note on the Racial/Ethnic Composition of the U.S. Young Adult Population.)

Figure II-4a, Full Size Supporting Data

In 2010, the distribution of humanities bachelor’s degrees among racial/ethnic groups was similar to that for all fields combined. Hispanics were the best represented among minority bachelor’s degree recipients in the humanities, earning 9.0% of all degrees completed in the field (Figure II-4b). Only the social service field awarded a substantially greater share of its degrees to Hispanic students. African American students received 7.8% of all humanities degrees, placing the humanities field in the middle of the rankings for completions by such students. In 2010, the humanities had one of the smallest proportions of both Asian/Pacific Islander (4.7%) and temporary-resident (1.8%) degree recipients at the bachelor’s level. The humanities, like all other fields, awarded only a very small percentage of bachelor’s degrees, 0.8%, to students of American Indian or Native Alaskan ancestry.

Figure II-4b, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-5	Gender Distribution of Undergraduate Degrees in the Humanities
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Updated (3/11/2013) with data for academic year 2010 (July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010).

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Just over half of all bachelor’s degrees in the humanities were awarded to women in 1966, with the percentage rising to approximately 60% by 2010 (down slightly from 2003’s historic high of 62%; Figure II-5). In 2010, the proportion of bachelor’s degrees awarded to women was substantially greater in only two fields: health/medical sciences and social services/education. The percentages of 2010 bachelor’s degrees awarded to women by the arts, behavioral/social sciences, and life sciences fields were similar to the percentage for the humanities, whereas women’s shares of physical sciences and engineering bachelor’s degrees were considerably smaller. The percentage of humanities bachelor’s degrees awarded to women has been traditionally higher than that for all fields combined, although the gap has been narrowing.

Figure II-5, Full Size Supporting Data

The gender distribution of bachelor’s degrees varies substantially among humanities disciplines. Although women are the majority of recipients in English, they are still in the minority in other fields such as history and philosophy. Part II, Section C, Undergraduate and Graduate Degree Information for Specific Humanities Disciplines, presents data on the gender composition of the degree-earning population for individual disciplines (as well as the total number of degrees granted and their racial/ethnic distribution).

Indicator II-6	Most Frequently Taken College Courses
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While U.S. Department of Education data provide a detailed picture of the number of undergraduate students majoring in various humanities fields (see Indicators II-1, II-2, II-3, II-4, and II-5), the actual number of humanities courses taken by nonhumanities majors is more elusive. Available data on college course-taking are not as recent as those on degrees; nor are they compiled as frequently. Nonetheless, data collected by NCES as part of its longitudinal studies of academic and employment outcomes do reveal the general trends in college course-taking over the last part of the 20th century. These data shed some light on the extent to which young Americans are bringing humanistic knowledge and skills with them into civic and occupational arenas after college.

Two humanities courses, freshman composition and U.S. history, were among the ten college courses most commonly taken by students who graduated from high school in the years 1972, 1982, and 1992 (Figure II-6). A greater percentage of students graduating from U.S. colleges and universities took a freshman composition course than any other course, and the proportion increased over time. In 1992, 85% of high school graduates who went on to obtain their bachelor’s degrees took such a course, up from 75% in the 1970s. Although students’ U.S. history course-taking waned in the 1980s, by the 1990s it had risen again, with 44% of the 1992 cohort taking a U.S. history survey course.

As for other introductory humanities courses that provide nonmajors with instruction in major branches of humanistic thought, the most widely taken courses over the three cohorts were introductory literature and Western civilization/culture, although both experienced a decline in share during the two decades between 1972 and 1992. Over this time period literature and art history classes also experienced net decreases in the percentage of students enrolled. On the other hand, courses in introductory philosophy, general and comparative religion, music history/appreciation, and Spanish saw increases. In fact, Spanish gained more than any course except freshman composition, with the percentage of students taking this language increasing by 10 points over the three cohorts (since the initial rate of Spanish coursetaking was lower than that for freshman composition, this 10 point gain for Spanish represents a much larger percentage increase than that experienced by composition). The increase is not surprising in light of the growth in high school Spanish course-taking described under Indicator I-7, Language Course Enrollment in Public High Schools. These gains must be kept in perspective, however: other than freshman composition and U.S. history, no humanities course attracted more than 32% of any of the three cohorts, with most drawing a considerably smaller proportion.

Figure II-6, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-7	Postsecondary Course-Taking in Languages Other than English (OTE)
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Updated (4/20/12) with data from the Modern Language Association’s 2009 survey of postsecondary enrollments in languages other than English.

Because of regular, detailed surveys conducted by the MLA, data regarding the extent of OTE language course-taking in the postsecondary educational setting are plentiful. They reveal that, while the number of enrollments in such courses has more than doubled since 1960, the ratio for 2009 of these enrollments to the total number of postsecondary students was substantially lower than it was five decades prior (Figure II-7a).1 In 1965 this ratio, expressed as a percentage, was 16.5%, the greatest ever recorded by the MLA. By 1980, the figure had dropped to 7.3%,2 a level from which it has risen only slightly in subsequent years, reaching 8.6% in 2009.

Figure II-7a, Full Size Supporting Data

That postsecondary OTE course enrollment did not decrease even more sharply as a percentage of the student population is due to the same phenomenon witnessed at the secondary level: a considerable increase in the number of enrollments in Spanish (see Indicator I-7, Language Course Enrollment in High Schools). Such enrollments more than quadrupled from 1960 to 2009, while enrollments in both French and German were lower in 2009 than in the middle of the previous century (although enrollment in these two languages did increase somewhat from 2006 to 2009; Figure II-7b). Enrollments in Italian and American Sign Language (ASL) experienced even greater percentages of growth than Spanish, but the numbers of enrollments in Italian and ASL were far smaller than those for Spanish over the time period. Figure II-7c highlights the growing popularity of Spanish. In 1960, enrollments in Spanish were only 42% as numerous as the enrollments in all other modern OTE languages combined. But by 1995, enrollments in Spanish exceeded the total for the other languages. In 2009, enrollments in Spanish were 13% higher than the combined total for all other modern languages (excluding English).

Figure II-7b, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure II-7c, Full Size Supporting Data

Though once the foundation of a liberal arts education, ancient Greek and Latin were much less frequently studied in recent decades than French, German, and Spanish, the most commonly taken modern OTE languages in American institutions of postsecondary education (Figure II-7d). In 1980, enrollments in Greek and Latin combined were only 6.2% of those in French, German, and Spanish combined, and that percentage dropped steadily in subsequent years, reaching a low of 4.5% by 1998. However, both languages have experienced increases in enrollments since the late 1990s. In 2009, enrollments in Latin were up 30% from their 1980 level, while a rise in enrollments in Greek beginning in 1998 had resulted in a full recovery by 2006—although from this year to 2009, enrollments in Greek declined by 9%, bringing them back below the 1980 level.

Figure II-7d, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure II-7e charts enrollment trends for the most commonly taken languages identified by former President George W. Bush in 2006 as “critical need” from a national security standpoint (see Indicator I-7, Language Course Enrollment in High Schools for more on the Bush administration’s National Security Language Initiative). From 1960 to 2009, enrollments in both Chinese and Japanese increased substantially, with Japanese being the more frequently studied language of the two. Another clear growth trend was the marked increase, after many years of stagnation, in enrollments in Arabic. In 2009 enrollments in Arabic, after increasing 689% from 1995 to 2009, exceeded, for the first time, the figure for Russian, which experienced a sharp drop in enrollments after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Figure II-7f presents enrollment figures for the other “critical need” languages on which the MLA collects data. In most cases, enrollments rose considerably between 1998 and 2006 but then leveled off or declined between 2006 and 2009. Even with the large percentage increases in these languages since the late 1990s—166% in the case of Hindi, for example—relatively few students pursue training in these languages (e.g., Hindi enrollments for 2009 were 2,207, compared to 91,763 enrollments in ASL).

Figure II-7e, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure II-7f, Full Size

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Notes

1 “To our knowledge, there are no data available on course enrollments in all subjects in United States institutions of higher education. To complicate matters, students, particularly majors, may enroll in more than one class in languages per semester and therefore be counted more than once. Thus numbers of students attending institutions of higher learning and enrollments in language courses are not equivalent groupings. Nonetheless, the ratio of language course enrollments to total students registered in postsecondary institutions is a figure that over time can serve as an important indicator of student involvement in the study of languages.” Nelly Furman, David Goldberg, and Natalia Lusin, Enrollments in Languages Other than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2006 (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2007), 2, http://www.mla.org/pdf/06enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf.

2 This period was one of dramatic decline in the proportion of postsecondary institutions with OTE language-related requirements for bachelor’s degrees. In 1965–1966, 88.9% of institutions reported such a requirement. By 1982–1983, the proportion had dropped to 47.4%. See Richard Brod and Monique Lapointe, “The MLA Survey of Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements, 1987–88,” ADFL Bulletin, vol. 20, no. 2 (January 1989): 18 table 1.

Indicator II-8	Humanities Students’ Scores on the Graduate Record Exam
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Updated (3/12/2010) with data from 2007.

Although national data assessing collegiate achievement do not currently exist, recent movement in this direction suggests such data might be available in coming years. The September 2006 report of the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education (more commonly known as the Spellings Commission after former U.S. secretary of education Margaret Spellings) contained a recommendation that the federal government encourage colleges and universities to measure student learning using tools such as the Educational Testing Service's Proficiency Profile (formerly known as the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress) and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). Some U.S. colleges and universities already require students to take such assessments as a condition of graduation. In 2004–2005, for example, the University of Texas system contracted with the Council for Aid to Education (CAE) to administer the CLA to at least a sample of students at every academic unit within the system.1 The CAE has also partnered with the Council for Independent Colleges (CIC) to sponsor the Collegiate Learning Assessment Consortium, a group of 47 CIC-member institutions that are using the CLA instrument as a means of evaluating students’ cognitive growth. (In early 2010, the United States announced its willingness to participate in an OECD-led effort to develop a global higher education outcomes assessment.)

Although a growing number of postsecondary institutions are administering standardized exams to measure student learning, the majority of U.S. colleges and universities still do not utilize such assessments. In the absence of such data, the Humanities Indicators Project utilizes Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores to shed some light on humanities majors’ proficiency in key areas. (For another perspective on college-level learning by humanities majors, see Indicator III-5, Undergraduate Humanities Majors and the Professions,, which examines humanities undergraduates’ performance on law, business, and medical school admissions exams.) The GRE, a test that most U.S. graduate schools require for admission to their programs, is taken by a nonrepresentative subset of students (those hoping to pursue advanced academic degrees in their fields). The GRE is taken mostly, but not exclusively, by students educated in the United States. For these reasons, GRE scores constitute an imperfect measure of the proficiency of humanities students emerging from U.S. colleges and universities. Nonetheless, the data permit rough comparisons of the level of verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing skills demonstrated by students of the humanities with those of science and engineering students, as well as among students in different humanities disciplines.

Humanities majors demonstrated, on average, the highest level of verbal skills among those taking the GRE between 2004 and 2007, outperforming the next highest scoring group, social science majors, by 63 points and exceeding the national average by 83 points (Figure II-8a). On the quantitative portion of the exam, examinees who had studied engineering or natural science scored considerably higher, on average, than humanities majors. Humanities majors’ average quantitative score was approximately 33 points lower than that for all examinees.

Figure II-8a, Full Size Supporting Data

Humanities majors were notable for the balance between their verbal and quantitative scores. On average, humanities students scored in the mid-500s on both the verbal and quantitative exams (800 is the highest score). In the sciences and engineering, quantitative scores tended to outstrip verbal scores by a substantial margin.

Figure II-8b shows examinees’ performance on the analytical writing portion of the GRE and again categorizes test takers according to their undergraduate major. Humanities majors were more likely than those in engineering and the sciences to score in the upper brackets, 4.5–6.0 (The analytical writing exam is scored on a 0–6 scale. See the description of skills demonstrated by students scoring at each of the analytical writing levels). Only among humanities and social science majors did at least 50% of students demonstrate such developed writing skills. Humanities majors were also the most likely to receive the highest possible scores, with 23% of examinees who had studied humanities scoring in the 5.5–6.0 range. From 4% to 14% of engineering and science majors scored at this level.

Figure II-8b, Full Size Supporting Data

When the humanities disciplines are compared, classics and philosophy students emerge as consistently high performers. Classics majors had the highest average verbal score (614), followed by examinees who had majored in philosophy (580; Figure II-8c). Students of classics and philosophy, along with linguistics majors, were also the top performers on the quantitative exam, with average scores ranging from 611 to 615.

When it came to demonstrated writing ability, at least 50% of majors in every humanities discipline received a score of at least 4.5 (Figure II-8d). Classics and philosophy students were again the most likely to demonstrate such proficiency, with approximately 75% of examinees scoring at or above this threshold. But even in the disciplines with the smallest share of such “strong” writers (archeology, languages and literatures other than English, linguistics, and music) approximately 60% of majors scored at this level—a larger proportion than in any nonhumanities discipline. Observed differences among the humanities disciplines in the share of strong writers were attributable almost entirely to disparities in the proportion of examinees earning the highest possible scores.

Figure II-8c, Full Size Supporting Data

Figure II-8d, Full Size Supporting Data

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Indicator II-9	GRE English Literature Subject Test Scores
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Updated (3/12/2010) with data from 2007.

As in the case of college achievement generally, currently no examination specifically assesses undergraduate learning in specific disciplines. In the absence of such an assessment, the Humanities Indicators Project employs data from the GRE Subject Test program in an attempt to gauge undergraduate achievement in the humanities. These data, however, have several limitations.

One major shortcoming is that unlike the NAEP, which is administered to a carefully drawn national probability sample of elementary and secondary students, the GRE subject exams are not taken by a representative sample of the U.S. undergraduate population. GRE scores gauge the performance only of those undergraduates who apply to graduate programs that require the exam. Another difficulty with the GRE data presented here is that some examinees have been out of college for several years. A formal assessment of undergraduate learning (as opposed to readiness for graduate study, which is what the GRE is designed to measure) would ideally be administered immediately before or after graduation. Moreover, the subject exams are taken only by students who wish to pursue graduate studies in those disciplines—and some of these students may not have majored in those fields during college. Finally, and most limiting for the purposes of the Humanities Indicators Project, is the fact that Educational Testing Service, the organization that develops and administers the GRE subject exams, offers the exam in only one humanities discipline, English literature.

Figure II-9 presents mean score data for this exam (it is scored on a scale ranging from 200 to 990). Each data point is a moving average, representing the average score of all examinees who took the exam in the previous three years. The 16 years between 1991–1992 and 2007–2008 have seen a net increase in mean scores. More specifically, the data indicate that while examinees’ scores dropped in the early to mid-1990s, they have risen by small increments almost every year since then. By 2000–2001, mean scores were at their pretrough levels, and in the most recent year for which data are available, 2007–2008, scores were 16 points higher than they were in 1991–1992.

Figure II-9, Full Size Supporting Data

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