[82lsju]

[quote="Card10Fan" pid='454074' dateline='1791665068']
The difference in talent between the two team is so wide. Seriously going to need to spend much more money than we have previously to attract better players out of the portal. Not sure we are willing to do that. If we don't, I'm not sure we can ever be competitive against these top teams.

Is there really a consensus on this board that Stanford SHOULD spend "much more money" to attract better players out of the portal? There comes a point when doing so would be something we should be bloody ashamed of. Stanford is a world-class university in Silicon Valley, not the south or midwest, and, demographically and in terms of interests, its student body is far from what it used to be. Increasingly, students come to Stanford to learn CS, MS&E, EE, and a few other fields of engineering and how to create their own startups. Relatively few come to study the humanities, the social sciences (except for econ), and pre-med. Is such a student body really going to come out to Stanford football games the quite different student body used to? I doubt it. Trying to save Stanford football is like the Dutch boy putting his finger into a hole in the dyke to plug up a leak. The leaks are now proliferating and significant progress in recovering real competitiveness seems unlikely. At least we've got an excellent basketball coach and a pretty good team since Kyle arrived.

regarding the makeup of the current undergrads

Humanities departments across American colleges graduated their lowest number of majors in 2025 since 1991, according to a report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

At Stanford, the popularity crisis is nothing new. 

The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by the University in the humanities and arts has fallen 56% since 2003. This decline, from 324 in 2003-2004 to 143 in 2025-2026, has continued even as the overall number of undergraduate degrees granted has increased.[/quote]

https://stanforddaily.com/2026/10/09/sta...eyxnQii_PA

I looked at some non-tech degrees for my class ('82) and here's what I found for non-tech undergrad degrees for departments that had over 20 grads, there were a lot more that had <20.  My class had more undergrad english degrees (148) than the entire university had humanities and arts undergrad degrees in 2025-26 (143).

American Studies 23, Communications 65, Economics 270, English 148, History 95, International Relations 86, Music 20, Philosophy 23, Political Science 132, Psychology 91, Sociology 22

Do you have the numbers by department for 25-26??  Note that econ is carrying the entire humanities school.

for the class of '26 (from the on-line SAA alumni database) with 20 or more non-techie undergrad degrees

- communications 38
- comparative studies in race and ethnicity 20
- economics 109
- english 24
- history 32
- international relations 49
- political science 76
- psychology 62
- public policy 42
- sociology 32

[82lsju]

[quote="Card10Fan" pid='454074' dateline='1791665068']
The difference in talent between the two team is so wide. Seriously going to need to spend much more money than we have previously to attract better players out of the portal. Not sure we are willing to do that. If we don't, I'm not sure we can ever be competitive against these top teams.

Is there really a consensus on this board that Stanford SHOULD spend "much more money" to attract better players out of the portal? There comes a point when doing so would be something we should be bloody ashamed of. Stanford is a world-class university in Silicon Valley, not the south or midwest, and, demographically and in terms of interests, its student body is far from what it used to be. Increasingly, students come to Stanford to learn CS, MS&E, EE, and a few other fields of engineering and how to create their own startups. Relatively few come to study the humanities, the social sciences (except for econ), and pre-med. Is such a student body really going to come out to Stanford football games the quite different student body used to? I doubt it. Trying to save Stanford football is like the Dutch boy putting his finger into a hole in the dyke to plug up a leak. The leaks are now proliferating and significant progress in recovering real competitiveness seems unlikely. At least we've got an excellent basketball coach and a pretty good team since Kyle arrived.

regarding the makeup of the current undergrads

Humanities departments across American colleges graduated their lowest number of majors in 2025 since 1991, according to a report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

At Stanford, the popularity crisis is nothing new. 

The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by the University in the humanities and arts has fallen 56% since 2003. This decline, from 324 in 2003-2004 to 143 in 2025-2026, has continued even as the overall number of undergraduate degrees granted has increased.[/quote]

https://stanforddaily.com/2026/10/09/sta...eyxnQii_PA

I looked at some non-tech degrees for my class ('82) and here's what I found for non-tech undergrad degrees for departments that had over 20 grads, there were a lot more that had <20.  My class had more undergrad english degrees (148) than the entire university had humanities and arts undergrad degrees in 2025-26 (143).

American Studies 23, Communications 65, Economics 270, English 148, History 95, International Relations 86, Music 20, Philosophy 23, Political Science 132, Psychology 91, Sociology 22

Do you have the numbers by department for 25-26??  Note that econ is carrying the entire humanities school.

for the class of '26 (from the on-line SAA alumni database) with 20 or more non-techie undergrad degrees

- communications 38
- comparative studies in race and ethnicity 20
- economics 109
- english 24
- history 32
- international relations 49
- political science 76
- psychology 62
- public policy 42
- sociology 32