Most Popular Study Fields
Hey Steemians,
I am here again and this time I would be looking at data on the most popular study fields for bachelors degrees in the USA. I was able to get data aggregated by National Center for Education Statistics. They have data as far back as 1970-1971 and the most recent data is from 2014-2015.
You can see from the table the highest number of bachelors degree was awarded in the field of Business with 363,799 degrees awarded.Health professions and related programs is second with 216,228 degrees awarded while Social Sciences and history is third with 166,944 degrees awarded.See Visualization of top 15 fields below:
Fields of study with strongest growth
So there you have it, the most popular study fields based on the most recent data but which field of study has expereinced the strongest growth over the past decade. For this analysis I simply took data for 2004-2005 and tried to compare the stats of each field of study to its most recent stats
| Field of study | Bachelors Degrees Awarded 2004-05 | Bachelors Degrees Awarded 2014-15 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Military technologies and applied sciences | 21 | 276 | 1214.29% |
| Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies | 17,948 | 49,006 | 173.04% |
| Health professions and related programs | 80,685 | 216,228 | 167.99% |
| Homeland security, law enforcement, andfirefighting | 25,211 | 62,723 | 148.79% |
| Legal professions and studies | 1,991 | 4,420 | 122.00% |
| Communications technologies | 2,523 | 5,135 | 103.53% |
| Mathematics and statistics | 11,171 | 21,853 | 95.62% |
| Library science | 52 | 99 | 90.38% |
| Multi/interdisciplinary studies | 26,478 | 47,556 | 79.61% |
| Public administration and social services | 19,447 | 34,363 | 76.70% |
| Biological and biomedical sciences | 65,915 | 109,896 | 66.72% |
| Physical sciences and science technologies | 18,025 | 30,038 | 66.65% |
| Psychology | 73,645 | 117,557 | 59.63% |
| Agriculture and natural resources | 23,002 | 36,277 | 57.71% |
| Visual and performing arts | 61,148 | 95,832 | 56.72% |
| Precision production | 31 | 48 | 54.84% |
| Engineering | 64,707 | 97,858 | 51.23% |
| Theology and religious vocations | 6,945 | 9,708 | 39.78% |
| Social sciences and history | 128,036 | 166,944 | 30.39% |
| Philosophy and religious studies | 8,717 | 11,072 | 27.02% |
| Transportation and materials moving | 3,748 | 4,711 | 25.69% |
| Communication, journalism, and related programs | 72,715 | 90,650 | 24.66% |
| Family and consumer sciences/human sciences | 20,074 | 24,584 | 22.47% |
| Business | 311,574 | 363,799 | 16.76% |
| Engineering technologies | 14,837 | 17,238 | 16.18% |
| Liberal arts and sciences, general studies,and humanities | 37,962 | 43,647 | 14.98% |
| Computer and information sciences | 54,111 | 59,581 | 10.11% |
| Foreign languages, literatures, and linguistics | 18,386 | 19,493 | 6.02% |
| Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies | 7,569 | 7,782 | 2.81% |
| Architecture and related services | 9,237 | 9,090 | -1.59% |
| Education | 105,451 | 91,623 | -13.11% |
| English language and literature/letters | 54,379 | 45,847 | -15.69% |
From the analysis,Military Technologies and applied science experienced the strongest growth with a percentage increase of 1214.29% increase, the percentage increase might be a bit flattering due to the scanty number of degrees awarded in this field compared to other fields.Parks,recreation,leisure and fitness studies expereinced the second strongest growth with 173.04% increase while Health professions and related programs experienced the 3rd strongest growth with 167.99% increase in number of degrees awarded.
There are a couple of fields I expected to experience stronger growth but they experienced very little or no growth at all, wonder if anyone finds that strange.Architecture and related services,Education and English language actually experienced a reduced number of awarded bachelors degrees with 1.59%,13.11% and 15.69% percentage decrease respectively.
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