Falling enrolment in NUS' arts and social sciences faculty

Higher entry demands, pressures to study subjects with better pay among reasons

- Ng Wei Kai

Fewer students are opting to specialise in arts and social sciences at the National University of Singapore, with enrolment at the faculty shrinking by nearly a third since 2019.

The faculty had around 6,400 undergraduate students and was NUS’ largest during the 2019/2020 academic year – a number which fell to around 4,400 in 2024, enrolment records from the university’s website showed.

Numbers were relatively stable for the prior six years, climbing steadily from just under 6,000 in 2014 to around 6,400 in 2020, before starting to decline.

Students, experts and NUS staff The Straits Times spoke to said that the falling Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) enrolment could be due to changing student demands, pressures to study subjects that will lead to better pay and career progression, and higher entry requirements.

The dip in enrolment at FASS coincided with rising numbers at the Faculty of Science (FOS).

Since 2020, FOS undergraduate enrolment climbed from about 4,100 students to nearly 5,300, an increase of about 24 per cent.

The two faculties have since December 2020 come together under a new administrative body known as the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS). CHS students share a common core curriculum across the two faculties, and are able, with some exceptions, to switch majors between faculties and take modules from both.

Overall, the total enrolment at NUS for full-time undergraduates has risen, from 26,797 in 2014 to 31,827 in 2024.

In response to queries from ST, NUS said it is seeing greater interest from prospective students for programmes such as computing, artificial intelligence, data science and analytics.

First-year enrolment in these programmes in NUS has increased by about 20 per cent from 2021 to 2023, it said.