From the end of World War II through approximately 1980, this country’s market-driven system of higher education has been praised for its accessibility, absence of central authority, broad-based political support, multiple sources of revenue, and demographic, institutional and structural diversity. More recently, perceptions of declining affordability, diminishing pools of traditional-age students, the ongoing replacement of tenured and tenure-line faculty by adjunct instructors, and an unrelenting privatization of public higher education have, among many other issues, raised concerns about higher education’s future directions. Although our decentralized system contributes to redundancy and inefficiency, the freedom for thousands of mostly autonomous colleges and universities to compete under the protection of academic freedom remains one of this country’s most distinguishing comparative advantages.

Throughout our history, particularly in challenging times, higher education has turned to the humanities to demonstrate that engaging in critical inquiry, pursuing the free exchange of ideas, and committing to something that is larger than oneself is an urgent societal imperative. In the wake of the presidential election, many people may be thinking about the capacity of democratic institutions to weather the storms of authoritarianism, ethnic nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism. This is a propitious time to examine the state of the academic and public humanities in the US and to consider strategies that will sustain their future.

The World Humanities Report, an international study organized by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences, documents the condition and contributions of the humanities around the world. The US report, Humanities in the United States, that I co-authored with James Shulman (American Council of Learned Societies) and a group of superb scholars, examines the social, cultural, economic, intellectual, and political forces that undergird and shape the humanities—departments, disciplines, libraries, scholarly journals, presses, learned societies, humanities centers, general education programs, government agencies, and philanthropy. We consider our audience to include policymakers, college and university administrators, regents and trustees, faculty, librarians, archivists, graduate students, higher education funders, and concerned citizens.