Assessing Geography’s Place in U.S. Higher Education: An Analysis of Undergraduate Geography Course Enrollment from 1948 to 2000

Abstract

The decline in geography programs in the United States since the 1980s and general questions about the utility of a geography degree is a long-running thread in the discipline’s shared identity. With recent closures of geography undergraduate programs and a projected “demographic cliff” of traditional college-aged students in the coming years, understanding how and why certain geography programs are under threat is crucial. Drawing on an underappreciated source for the study of geography course enrollments, this article examines enrollments in undergraduate geography courses between 1948 and 2000 to understand the discipline’s larger standing in the U.S. academic landscape. By examining historical undergraduate course enrollment, as opposed to the number of graduates, it is possible to better hypothesize and understand the ramifications for the decline of programs.

Key Words:

• academic capitalism
• general education
• geography course enrollment
• geography curriculum
• history of geography

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Matthew W. Wilson and Jeffery Bieber for reviewing early versions of this article. All errors remain my own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 1990 and 2000 data does not include information about individual institutional course offerings as these data were not presented in a usable format. Additionally, given that the directory did not meaningfully distinguish between undergraduate and graduate courses, all courses and enrollments were counted. This might slightly inflate the data, especially in research-intensive institutions, but given the historically low number of graduate students, this inflation is not significant.

2 The earliest year data are available for purely undergraduate enrollment (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jack Swab

JACK SWAB is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506. E-mail: [email protected]. His research examines administrative boundaries and the development and use of public health maps in urban areas.