The Marginalized Subcontinent: Why South Asian Studies Programs Fail to Attract Students (1997-2018)

By: Dr. Pallavi Mohanan | Save Ancient Studies Alliance Research Intern

Abstract

This study examines the persistent under enrollment crisis in South Asian Studies programs across U.S. higher education from 1997-2018, during which these programs consistently graduated fewer than 20 students annually despite South Asia's increasing global significance. Through mixed-methods analysis combining federal education data (IPEDS), institutional case studies of eight universities, and policy analysis of Title VI funding patterns, this research identifies three primary factors contributing to this marginalization: institutional resource allocation failures that position area studies as peripheral, geopolitical paradoxes where strategic importance fails to generate academic investment, and structural vulnerabilities affecting specialized regional programs broadly. Comparative analysis with Ancient American Studies and East Asian Studies reveals that South Asian Studies' challenges reflect both field-specific issues and a systemic crisis in the Cold War-era area studies model. The post-9/11 security focus produced minimal enrollment impact, while India's economic rise channelled student interest toward business and STEM fields rather than humanities-based area studies. This research contributes to understanding how universities in the United States produce- or fail to produce- regional expertise in an era of globalization, with implications for federal education policy, university resource allocation, and the sustainability of specialized knowledge production in contemporary higher education.

Keywords: Area Studies Enrollment, South Asian Studies, Higher Education Policy, Title VI Funding, Regional Expertise Production.

Introduction

Between 1997 and 2018, South Asian Studies programs in U.S. universities confronted a persistent and paradoxical enrollment crisis, consistently graduating fewer than 20 students annually despite profound transformations in South Asia's global position (National Centre for Education Statistics, 2019). This period witnessed India's dramatic emergence as a major economic power, with GDP growing from approximately $400 billion to nearly $3 trillion (World Bank, 2019). Simultaneously, Pakistan assumed a central role in post-9/11 geopolitics as a frontline state in the war on terror, while the South Asian diaspora population in the United States expanded to exceed four million people, becoming one of the fastest-growing and most economically successful immigrant communities (Pew Research Centre, 2025). Yet despite these developments, U.S. universities failed to produce commensurate numbers of South Asia specialists, raising critical questions about how institutions prioritize regional expertise. If universities face challenges maintaining programs focused on a region of 1.8 billion people with substantial U.S. strategic, economic, and diplomatic connections, what might this suggest about the area studies model's contemporary applicability?

As Szanton (2004) has argued, area studies programs were explicitly designed to produce the kind of deep cultural knowledge, linguistic competency, and historical understanding necessary for effective engagement with diverse world regions. The persistent inability to attract students to South Asian Studies programs suggests either a fundamental mismatch between this educational model and contemporary student needs, or a failure of institutions to adequately communicate the value and relevance of such expertise. This study addresses three interconnected research questions that probe different dimensions of this phenomenon. First, what institutional, geopolitical, and academic factors explain the persistent under-enrollment in South Asian Studies programs from 1997-2018? Second, do South Asian Studies face unique challenges specific to this region, or does its marginalization reflect broader structural vulnerabilities affecting specialized area studies programs across the board? Third, what do enrollment patterns reveal about the relationship between geopolitical significance and academic investment in regional expertise?

The 1997-2018 timeframe was selected deliberately to capture critical developments that shaped the landscape of area studies education. This period encompasses the pre-9/11 baseline, allowing assessment of enrollment patterns before the security environment dramatically shifted. It includes the post-9/11 decade, during which one might have expected heightened attention to South Asia given Afghanistan and Pakistan's centrality to U.S. military and diplomatic efforts. The timeframe also captures the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, when university budget constraints intensified and many institutions undertook significant program consolidations. Finally, it extends through the subsequent decade of adjustment, allowing examination of whether programs recovered or continued declining. This temporal scope permits analysis of how external shocks and long-term structural trends interact to shape program viability, distinguishing between temporary fluctuations and persistent patterns that challenge fundamental assumptions about the relationship between geopolitical importance and academic prioritization.

Literature Review

The National Defence Education Act of 1958 represented a watershed moment in federal investment in higher education, establishing the institutional infrastructure for producing regional expertise through Title VI funding (Engerman, 2009). This legislation, passed in direct response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, explicitly linked national security to educational capacity in foreign languages and area studies. Scholars have extensively documented how this federal funding architecture shaped program development, faculty hiring patterns, and curricular priorities, essentially creating an academic infrastructure aligned with state interests (Cumings, 1997; Rafael, 1994). South Asian Studies developed within this Cold War framework but occupied a distinctly ambiguous position in the hierarchy of regional priorities. Unlike East Asian Studies, which focused intensively on China as a communist adversary and Japan as a crucial ally, South Asian Studies lacked the urgency of direct superpower confrontation. India's non-aligned status meant it was neither clearly friend nor foe in U.S. strategic calculations, while Pakistan's shifting alliances created inconsistent policy attention. This intermediate status in the geopolitical imagination contributed to chronic underfunding relative to other area studies fields, establishing patterns of marginalization that would persist even as South Asia's global significance grew. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 prompted scholarly reassessment of area studies frameworks, as researchers debated whether Cold War-era geographic approaches remained analytically useful in an increasingly interconnected world, with some advocating for thematic rather than regional organization (Miyoshi & Harootunian, 2002; Appadurai, 1996). These intellectual discussions occurred alongside broader shifts in higher education, including declining humanities enrollment—particularly after 2008—and student preferences for STEM and pre-professional programs, with area studies facing additional structural challenges related to interdisciplinary coordination, language requirements, and less clearly defined career pathways (Indicators, 2018).

The September 11, 2001 attacks generated renewed attention to the importance of regional expertise, particularly regarding the Middle East and South Asia. Federal initiatives like the National Security Language Initiative, launched in 2006, designated languages including Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi as "critical" to national security (Wiley, 2007). Yet this policy attention did not translate into sustained enrollment growth in South Asian Studies programs. Several explanations have been proposed for this disconnect. The institutional alignment between area studies programs and national security agencies may have negatively influenced the appeal of these programs among students with varying perspectives on government surveillance policies and military engagement. Additionally, alternative pathways to regional expertise emerged through policy schools and international relations programs that offered more professionally-oriented training without requiring intensive language study. Limited empirical research exists comparing enrollment patterns across different area studies fields, though East Asian Studies appears to maintain relatively stronger enrollment, likely due to economic ties and popular culture interest (Katzenstein, 2013). Despite extensive literature on area studies' intellectual evolution, surprisingly little empirical research systematically examines enrollment patterns, institutional decision-making processes, or student motivations. This study addresses that significant gap through systematic analysis of enrollment data and institutional practices.

Methodology

This study employs a mixed-methods research design that combines quantitative enrollment analysis, qualitative institutional case studies, and policy document analysis to examine the persistent under-enrollment in South Asian Studies programs. This methodological triangulation allows for comprehensive examination of the phenomenon from multiple analytical perspectives, capturing aggregate national trends, institutional-level decision-making processes, and the broader policy environment that shapes program viability (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017). By integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches, the research design addresses both the scope of the enrollment crisis and the complex institutional and policy mechanisms that produce and sustain it. The quantitative component draws primarily on data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the comprehensive data collection program administered by the National Centre for Education Statistics. IPEDS collects annual data from all institutions participating in federal student aid programs, making it the most complete source of information on degree completions across U.S. higher education (Ginder et al., 2019). The system provides completion data organized by Classification of Instructional Programs codes, allowing systematic tracking of bachelor's degrees awarded in South Asian Studies, identified by CIP code 05.0125, alongside comparative area studies fields. The analytical approach employs descriptive statistics to track annual graduation numbers from 1997 through 2018, establishing baseline patterns and identifying temporal trends. Comparative analysis examines South Asian Studies enrollment alongside Ancient American Studies, East Asian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and General Area Studies programs. This comparative framework is essential for determining whether South Asian Studies faces unique challenges or whether its marginalization reflects broader structural vulnerabilities affecting specialized regional programs. However, IPEDS data has inherent limitations, capturing only students who formally declare majors and complete degrees, not those who take courses, pursue minors, or develop informal concentrations in South Asian topics.

The qualitative component consists of institutional case studies examining six universities selected to represent diversity across multiple dimensions. The sample includes variation in institution type, encompassing major research universities and liberal arts colleges with their distinct missions and resource structures. Geographic distribution captures regional differences in institutional cultures and student populations, while variation in local South Asian diaspora population density reflects how proximity to substantial South Asian communities might influence program visibility and student interest. Institutions are selected to represent different program structures, including standalone departments with dedicated faculty lines, interdisciplinary programs coordinating across departments, and certificate or minor programs without major offerings. The case study sites include the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, Columbia University, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. For each institution, data collection encompasses annual major declarations and graduations spanning 1997-2018, faculty size and hiring patterns, course offerings and enrollment figures, administrative positioning, and budget allocations where publicly available. Case study analysis identifies institutional factors associated with relatively stronger or weaker enrollment outcomes, revealing how local contexts, administrative decisions, and resource allocation patterns shape program viability. The third methodological component examines policy and geopolitical contexts that frame institutional decision-making. This includes systematic analysis of Title VI National Resource Centre designations and Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship allocations for South Asian Studies programs, tracking funding levels, geographic distribution patterns, and potential correlations with enrollment trends. Federal education policy documents, congressional testimony, and strategic initiatives related to area studies and language education from 1997-2018 are analysed to understand how policy discourse and funding priorities evolved. A geopolitical timeline maps major events affecting South Asia, including the 1998 nuclear tests, the September 11 attacks and subsequent Afghanistan intervention, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and ongoing regional tensions, against enrollment trends to assess whether external events influence student interest in measurable ways. The analysis employs a multi-level framework that examines factors operating at macro, meso, and micro scales. The macro level encompasses federal policy, funding patterns, and geopolitical contexts that shape the overall environment for area studies. The meso level focuses on institutional priorities, resource allocation decisions, and administrative structures that determine program positioning within universities. The micro level considers student decision-making processes, career perceptions, and curricular accessibility factors that influence individual choices about majors. This framework allows identification of how factors at different scales interact to produce enrollment outcomes.

Quantitative Enrollment Analysis

Federal education data reveals stark and persistent patterns in South Asian Studies enrollment over the 22-year study period from 1997 to 2018. Annual bachelor's degree completions remained consistently below 20 students nationally, with several years recording fewer than 10 graduates across all U.S. institutions of higher education. To contextualize this figure, South Asian Studies graduates represented approximately 0.001% of all bachelor's degrees awarded annually in the United States, a proportion so minimal as to render the field statistically invisible within the broader landscape of U.S. undergraduate education (National Centre for Education Statistics, 2019). This extraordinarily low enrollment persisted despite South Asia's dramatic rise in global significance during this period, creating a profound disconnect between geopolitical importance and academic investment in regional expertise. The temporal analysis reveals three distinct phases that correspond to major external events and policy shifts. The pre-9/11 baseline period from 1997 to 2001 established a pattern of stable but minimal enrollment, averaging 12 to 15 graduates annually across all U.S. universities. This baseline reflected the field's marginal status during the final years of the Cold War framework, when South Asia occupied an ambiguous position in the U.S. strategic priorities. The post-9/11 period from 2002 to 2008 witnessed a slight uptick in graduations, reaching 15 to 18 students annually, suggesting a modest institutional and student response to increased regional attention following the September 11 attacks and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, this increase proved both temporary and limited in scope, failing to generate the sustained growth that might have been expected given South Asia's centrality to United States foreign policy during this period. The post-financial crisis decade from 2009 to 2018 saw enrollment return to baseline levels or experience slight decline, averaging 10 to 15 graduates annually. This pattern suggests that whatever momentum the field gained from post-9/11 attention dissipated as universities faced budget constraints and students increasingly prioritized professionally-oriented programs during economic uncertainty.

Placing South Asian Studies within comparative context reveals both shared vulnerabilities and distinctive patterns across specialized area studies programs. Ancient American Studies emerges as even more severely marginalized, graduating only 1 to 20 students annually nationwide. This field confronts unique challenges related to the historical marginalization of indigenous knowledge systems, ongoing institutional colonialism, and complex questions about who should study indigenous cultures and through what methodological frameworks. East Asian Studies maintains significantly larger enrollment at 100 to 180 graduates annually, though this figure remains small in absolute terms relative to major fields of study. The stronger performance of East Asian Studies likely reflects multiple factors including substantial economic ties between the United States, China, and Japan, larger heritage language speaker populations that provide a natural recruitment base, and popular culture interest in anime, K-pop, and other cultural products that create pathways to academic engagement. Middle Eastern Studies demonstrates a different trajectory, showing a pronounced post-9/11 growth spike followed by gradual decline, suggesting that geopolitical events can temporarily boost student interest but that sustained enrollment requires ongoing institutional support and student perception of career relevance.

Enrollment distribution patterns reveal extreme concentration within a small number of elite research universities. Approximately 60 to 70% of all South Asian Studies graduates emerge from just 5 to 7 institutions, primarily Ivy League universities and flagship state research universities that hold Title VI National Resource Centre designations. This concentration indicates that program viability depends heavily on achieving critical mass across multiple dimensions including specialized faculty clusters, comprehensive library and research resources, federal funding support, and institutional prestige that enhances student recruitment capacity. Liberal arts colleges and regional universities rarely sustain standalone South Asian Studies programs, instead offering occasional courses through disciplinary departments such as history, anthropology, or religious studies. This institutional concentration raises questions about the geographic and social accessibility of South Asian Studies education, as the field becomes available primarily to students who can access elite institutions.

Available demographic data, while limited, suggests that South Asian Studies does not primarily attract heritage students from South Asian diaspora backgrounds, a pattern that distinguishes it from some other area studies fields. Many students of South Asian descent pursue majors in STEM fields, business, or medicine rather than area studies, reflecting broader patterns of immigrant community educational priorities and career expectations. This differs somewhat from East Asian Studies, which attracts both heritage learners seeking to deepen cultural connections and non-heritage students interested in the region for economic or cultural reasons. The limited appeal to heritage populations may relate to parental expectations and career pressure within South Asian immigrant communities, perceptions that cultural knowledge can be acquired through family and community networks rather than formal academic study, and limited visibility of South Asian Studies as a viable academic and professional field.

Preliminary analysis of the relationship between federal funding and enrollment reveals surprisingly weak correlations. While institutions receiving Title VI National Resource Centre designations do graduate more South Asian Studies majors than those without such support, funding increases do not produce proportional enrollment growth (As shown in Table 1). This finding challenges common assumptions that resource constraints alone explain under enrollment patterns. Even well-funded programs with substantial institutional support struggle to attract students, suggesting that demand-side factors including student interest, career perceptions, and competition from other fields matter as much as supply-side factors such as program resources and faculty expertise. Finally, South Asian Studies' enrollment challenges significantly exceed general humanities decline trends. While humanities majors overall decreased approximately 30% from peak levels during this period, South Asian Studies showed no growth from already minimal baseline levels, indicating field-specific factors beyond broad trends away from humanities education (Indicators, 2018).

Institutional Case Studies

Detailed examination of six institutions reveals how local contexts, administrative structures, and resource allocation patterns shape program viability in South Asian Studies. These cases demonstrate different institutional responses to the fundamental challenge of sustaining specialized regional programs in an increasingly competitive and resource-constrained higher education environment. The University of Pennsylvania represents what might be considered optimal conditions for South Asian Studies program success. The institution maintains a standalone South Asian Studies major within the School of Arts and Sciences, supported by a robust South Asia Centre that holds Title VI National Resource Centre designation and receives substantial federal funding. The program benefits from a strong faculty cluster of eight to ten specialists distributed across multiple departments including history, anthropology, religious studies, and political science, along with extensive library collections that rank among the nation's finest for South Asian materials. The centre sponsors active programming including lectures, conferences, and cultural events that maintain high visibility on campus. Despite these substantial advantages, enrollment patterns reveal the persistent challenge facing even well-resourced programs, averaging only two to three majors per year, which while among the highest nationally, remains minimal in absolute terms. Penn's case suggests that even optimal conditions including elite institutional status, dedicated resources, and faculty expertise cannot alone generate robust enrollment, indicating that demand-side constraints rather than supply-side limitations may be the binding factor in program sustainability.

The University of Chicago illustrates the consolidation pressures affecting even historically prestigious programs. Chicago's South Asian Studies developed as a concentration within broader interdisciplinary frameworks, building on the institution's historically strong anthropology and history departments that produced influential scholarship on South Asia. However, enrollment patterns show a decline from three to four majors annually in the 1990s to only one to two in the 2010s. This decline coincided with faculty retirements that were not fully replaced, reflecting broader institutional budget pressures and shifting priorities. The program was gradually absorbed into a larger Global Studies framework, reducing its visibility as a standalone field and diluting its distinctive identity. Chicago's trajectory demonstrates how even prestigious institutions with strong intellectual traditions face pressure to consolidate specialized programs into broader structures, potentially sacrificing depth of regional expertise for administrative efficiency and broader student appeal.

The University of California, Berkeley adopted a distinctive approach by combining South and Southeast Asian Studies into a single major, attempting to achieve critical mass through regional aggregation. This strategy produces slightly higher enrollment numbers, averaging four to six students annually, benefiting from both the regional combination that provides more curricular options and Berkeley's large undergraduate population that increases the potential recruitment pool. The program benefits significantly from the Bay Area's substantial South Asian diaspora community, which provides cultural programming opportunities, internship possibilities, and community connections that enhance the educational experience. Berkeley maintains strong language programs in multiple South Asian languages and draws on interdisciplinary faculty across numerous departments. The regional combination strategy suggests one potential approach to enhancing program viability, though it raises important questions about whether combining regions maintains the depth of specialized expertise that area studies programs traditionally aimed to provide.

Columbia University maintains its South Asian Studies program through embedding within the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department, a structure that provides administrative stability while potentially diluting regional focus. Enrollment remains relatively stable at two to four majors annually, benefiting from Columbia's location in New York City with its large and diverse South Asian population that provides internship opportunities, cultural programming, and community engagement possibilities. The program draws strength from a robust graduate program that feeds undergraduate teaching and maintains research momentum, while institutional prestige continues to attract high-quality students despite limited numbers. Columbia's approach demonstrates how embedding South Asian Studies within larger departmental structures can provide sustainability, though enrollment remains minimal despite these favourable conditions.

The University of Texas at Austin represents a different institutional model, with the South Asia Institute coordinating interdisciplinary programming without offering a standalone major, instead providing certificate options for students majoring in other fields. This structure produces few formal majors but attracts more students to certificate programs or informal concentrations that allow a combination of South Asian expertise with other academic interests. The program maintains strong language offerings and benefits from Title VI funding, but faces ongoing challenges in competing with other area studies programs for resources and student attention while lacking dedicated faculty lines that would provide institutional stability. Texas illustrates the administrative complexity of sustaining interdisciplinary programs without clear departmental homes, requiring substantial coordination effort that may not produce proportional enrollment returns.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison adopted a certificate-only model that may represent a more sustainable approach to South Asian Studies education. Rather than offering a major, Wisconsin provides certificate programs that attract five to ten completions annually, allowing students to major in other fields while developing South Asian expertise. This approach builds on Wisconsin's historically strong area studies tradition while acknowledging that South Asian Studies never achieved the critical mass necessary for departmental status. The certificate model enables students to combine regional expertise with majors perceived as more practical or professionally oriented, potentially addressing career concerns that deter students from area studies majors while still developing regional knowledge and cultural competency. Liberal arts colleges present a composite picture of institutions that generally cannot sustain formal South Asian Studies programs due to their smaller scale and different educational missions. These institutions typically offer occasional courses through disciplinary departments such as history, religion, or anthropology, with students sometimes writing senior theses on South Asian topics but lacking formal program structures. Small faculty sizes preclude the specialized clusters necessary for area studies programs, as institutions prioritize maintaining disciplinary departments over developing regional specializations. This pattern limits systematic South Asian expertise development outside major research universities, raising questions about the geographic and institutional accessibility of such education.

Cross-case analysis reveals several consistent patterns that illuminate the structural challenges facing South Asian Studies programs. A resource paradox emerges whereby even well-resourced programs struggle with enrollment, suggesting that resources are necessary but insufficient conditions for program success (as shown in Table 2). Institutions increasingly embed South Asian Studies within broader structures such as Global Studies, Asian Studies, or combined regional departments, reducing standalone visibility while potentially providing administrative stability. Certificate programs appear more sustainable than majors, allowing students to develop regional expertise while pursuing other primary fields of study. Program viability correlates strongly with institutional prestige and research university status, concentrating opportunities within elite institutions. Finally, small faculty clusters prove vulnerable to retirements and hiring freezes, creating ongoing instability that undermines program continuity and student confidence in choosing these fields of study.

Geopolitical and Policy Context Analysis

Federal funding patterns for South Asian Studies reveal a complex landscape of modest support that failed to translate into sustained program growth or student enrollment. Title VI funding for South Asian Studies National Resource Centres remained relatively stable throughout the 1997-2018 period, with four to six centres receiving designation in each competitive funding cycle. However, this apparent stability masked a more troubling reality as funding levels failed to keep pace with inflation, representing a real decline in federal support over time. The designated centres, primarily located at elite research universities including the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and University of California at Berkeley, received funding that supported faculty positions, library acquisitions, and programming, but these resources proved insufficient to generate the critical mass necessary for robust undergraduate enrollment. Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships for South Asian languages including Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Tamil numbered only 30 to 50 annually across all institutions, a figure far smaller than allocations for East Asian or Middle Eastern languages. This limited fellowship support both reflected and reinforced South Asian Studies' marginal status within the federal area studies funding hierarchy, creating a self-perpetuating cycle where limited resources constrained program development, which in turn justified continued limited investment.

The September 11, 2001 attacks precipitated intensified federal attention to regional expertise and language capacity, generating policy initiatives that might have been expected to benefit South Asian Studies given Afghanistan and Pakistan's centrality to subsequent military and diplomatic efforts. The National Security Language Initiative, launched in 2006, designated Urdu as a "critical language" for national security purposes, and funding for South Asia-related programs increased modestly through various federal agencies (Wiley, 2007). However, this policy attention produced surprisingly limited impact on undergraduate enrollment patterns, suggesting a fundamental disconnect between policy rhetoric and educational outcomes. Several factors may explain this paradox. The time lag inherent in policy initiatives meant that funding increases often proved temporary, arriving before universities could build sustainable institutional capacity and departing before programs could demonstrate results. Additionally, students interested in South Asia policy careers increasingly pursued alternative pathways through international relations programs, security studies centres, or policy schools that offered more professionally-oriented training without requiring the intensive language study and cultural immersion central to traditional area studies. The geopolitical framing of South Asia through security and terrorism lenses may have inadvertently narrowed the region's image in student minds, obscuring its cultural richness, economic dynamism, and intellectual traditions that might otherwise attract academic interest.

Institutional responses to major geopolitical events affecting South Asia revealed a consistent pattern of temporary interest spikes that failed to translate into sustained enrollment growth. The 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and ongoing India-Pakistan tensions each generated temporary increases in course enrollment and public programming attendance, as students and community members sought to understand unfolding events. However, these current events-driven interest surges consistently failed to overcome structural barriers to area studies enrollment including career concerns, language requirements, interdisciplinary complexity, and competition with professionally-oriented majors. This pattern suggests that while geopolitical events can stimulate curiosity and short-term engagement, they cannot address the fundamental challenges that deter students from committing to specialized regional studies as their primary academic focus.

India's dramatic economic transformation from the 1990s onward presented another paradox in the relationship between geopolitical significance and academic enrollment. India's emergence as a major economic power, its development as a global information technology hub, and the deepening U.S.-India strategic partnership might logically have been expected to boost South Asian Studies enrollment as students sought to position themselves for careers engaging with this rising market. Interest in India's economic rise was largely captured by business schools and economics departments rather than area studies programs, as students and institutions framed economic engagement in terms of market opportunities rather than cultural understanding. India's association with technology and engineering sectors reinforced existing student preferences for STEM fields over humanities-based area studies approaches. Additionally, second-generation South Asian Americans, who might have been expected to show particular interest in academic study of their heritage region, often pursued professional careers in medicine, engineering, or business rather than academic specialization in regional studies, reflecting broader patterns of immigrant community educational priorities and career expectations.

Comparison with Middle Eastern Studies provides an instructive perspective on the relationship between geopolitical events and enrollment patterns. Middle Eastern Studies experienced significant post-9/11 enrollment growth as students sought to understand a region suddenly central to U.S. foreign policy and public discourse. However, this growth proved temporary, with enrollment declining after 2010 as initial curiosity waned and structural challenges reasserted themselves. South Asian Studies experienced a much weaker post-9/11 effect, possibly because Afghanistan and Pakistan received less sustained public attention than Iraq, South Asia remained secondary to the Middle East in policy discourse, and existing program infrastructure was weaker, limiting institutional capacity to capitalize on whatever interest existed. Title VI funding, while valuable for maintaining basic institutional infrastructure, demonstrated significant limitations as a tool for sustaining area studies enrollment. The funding's indirect effects, supporting centres and fellowships rather than directly incentivizing undergraduate participation, meant that resources often failed to reach the level where student decisions were made. Elite concentration of funding in research universities left most institutions without support for developing regional expertise, while four-year funding cycles created uncertainty that complicated long-term planning and program development. Perhaps most fundamentally, total funding for all area studies remained modest relative to the scale of the U.S. higher education system, suggesting that federal policy alone cannot solve enrollment challenges without complementary institutional commitment and genuine student demand (as shown in Table 3).

Comparative Analysis: The Broader Area Studies Crisis

Examining Ancient American Studies and East Asian Studies alongside South Asian Studies reveals common structural vulnerabilities that suggest a broader crisis affecting specialized area studies programs across U.S. higher education. All area studies fields confront the fundamental challenge of interdisciplinary complexity, requiring coordination across multiple departments without typically controlling faculty lines or curriculum directly. This administrative burden creates confusion for students navigating degree requirements while imposing substantial coordination costs on institutions already facing budget pressures. Language requirements present another shared barrier, as intensive study in languages perceived as difficult or having limited practical application deters students concerned about grade point averages and time to graduation. Career pathway opacity represents perhaps the most significant common challenge, as students struggle to envision concrete professional trajectories utilizing area studies expertise, unlike the clear pathways offered by engineering, business, or health professions. Institutional marginality compounds these problems, as area studies programs rarely achieve departmental status with dedicated faculty lines, making them vulnerable to budget cuts and administrative reorganization during periods of financial constraint. Additionally, disciplinary fragmentation occurs when students interested in regional topics pursue them through traditional disciplinary majors in history, anthropology, or political science rather than specialized area studies programs, dispersing potential enrollment across multiple departments and reducing the visibility of regional expertise as a coherent field of study.

Despite these shared vulnerabilities, each area studies field confronts distinctive challenges that shape its particular trajectory. Ancient American Studies faces the most severe marginalization, with enrollment numbers approaching zero at many institutions. The field confronts ongoing legacies of colonialism and debates about who should study indigenous cultures and through what frameworks, creating intellectual and political tensions that may deter both students and institutions from engagement. East Asian Studies maintains relatively stronger enrollment due to multiple reinforcing factors including substantial economic ties between the United States and China and Japan, larger heritage language speaker populations, and popular culture interest in anime, K-pop, and other cultural products that create pathways to academic engagement. Yet even this comparatively successful field graduates only 100 to 180 students annually nationwide, demonstrating the broader challenges facing specialized regional programs. South Asian Studies occupies an intermediate position within this landscape, larger than Ancient American Studies but far smaller than East Asian Studies, lacking both the economic drivers that sustain interest in East Asia and the decolonization discourse that energizes some segments of Ancient American Studies programming.

These patterns suggest that the Cold War-era area studies model faces systemic challenges in contemporary higher education that transcend individual field characteristics. Globalization critiques question whether bounded geographic regions remain meaningful analytical units in an era of transnational flows, diaspora formations, and global interconnection, challenging the fundamental epistemological foundations of area studies approaches (Appadurai, 1996). Disciplinary competition intensifies as traditional departments increasingly incorporate global and regional content into their curricula, reducing the perceived need for standalone area studies programs while potentially fragmenting regional expertise across multiple institutional locations. Student preferences for pre-professional programs leave diminishing space for specialized regional expertise in undergraduate education, as career concerns and debt burdens drive enrollment toward fields with clearer employment outcomes (As shown in Table 4). Resource constraints force universities to consolidate programs, with small area studies programs particularly vulnerable to elimination or merged into broader international studies frameworks that may sacrifice depth for administrative efficiency.

Alternative pathways through policy schools, international affairs programs, and disciplinary departments may be replacing traditional area studies in producing regional specialists, but whether these alternatives provide equivalent depth and cultural competency remains unclear. The shift away from intensive area studies toward broader international studies programs may sacrifice the deep regional knowledge, linguistic capacity, and cultural understanding that area studies programs traditionally aimed to develop. Without robust area studies programs, the United States may struggle to maintain capacity in less commonly taught languages essential for diplomatic, commercial, and cultural engagement. These concerns extend beyond academic institutions to affect diplomatic capacity, business competitiveness, and cultural understanding in an increasingly interconnected world where regional expertise remains crucial for effective engagement across cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Conclusion

This research identifies three primary factors explaining the persistent under enrollment crisis in South Asian Studies programs across U.S. higher education from 1997 to 2018. First, institutional marginalization emerges as a fundamental constraint, with South Asian Studies programs occupying precarious positions within university structures, rarely constituting standalone departments with dedicated faculty lines, and remaining dependent on complex interdisciplinary coordination that creates administrative burdens while making programs vulnerable to budget cuts and reorganization. Even well-resourced programs at elite universities with substantial Title VI funding, extensive library collections, and strong faculty clusters struggle to attract students, suggesting that institutional commitment, while necessary, proves insufficient without broader structural changes in how universities and students conceptualize regional expertise. Second, a geopolitical paradox characterizes the relationship between South Asia's growing global significance and academic investment in regional expertise. Despite India's emergence as a major economic power, Pakistan's centrality to post-9/11 security concerns, and the substantial South Asian diaspora population in the United States, these developments failed to translate into increased academic enrollment. The post-9/11 security focus produced minimal enrollment impact, while India's economic rise channelled student interest into business schools and STEM fields rather than humanities-based area studies programs. This reveals a fundamental disconnect between geopolitical importance and academic investment, challenging assumptions about how strategic significance influences educational priorities. Third, South Asian Studies' challenges reflect broader structural vulnerabilities affecting specialized area studies programs throughout U.S. higher education. The Cold War-era model of intensive regional expertise faces mounting pressure from globalization discourse that questions geographic boundaries, disciplinary competition as traditional departments incorporate global content, student career concerns that favour professionally-oriented programs, and university budget constraints that make small specialized programs vulnerable to elimination or consolidation.

These findings contribute significantly to theoretical understanding of the relationship between geopolitical significance and academic knowledge production. The research demonstrates that strategic importance does not automatically generate academic investment, as institutional inertia, student career calculations, and disciplinary structures mediate this relationship in complex ways that often prevent translation of external significance into internal educational priorities. The study also illuminates fundamental tensions in contemporary higher education between specialized expertise and broad interdisciplinary knowledge, humanities-based cultural understanding and professional skill development, long-term knowledge production and immediate career preparation, and regional depth versus global breadth. South Asian Studies' marginalization reflects broader shifts in how universities conceptualize their mission and how students approach education in an era of rising costs, employment concerns, and changing expectations about higher education's purpose and value. The policy implications of these findings operate at multiple levels within the higher education ecosystem. Federal education policy faces the challenge that Title VI funding, while valuable for maintaining basic infrastructure, cannot alone sustain area studies programs without complementary institutional commitment and genuine student demand. Policy interventions could include funding that matches inflation rather than declining in real terms, incentives for undergraduate enrollment alongside graduate training and faculty development, support for alternative program formats such as certificates and minors, and initiatives linking area studies expertise to careers in government, business, and nonprofit sectors. Universities face decisions about maintaining specialized area studies programs or adapting to new models of global knowledge production. Available approaches include consolidation into broader regional or global studies programs, certificate and minor formats allowing students to combine regional expertise with other majors, integration with professional schools in business, law, and policy to establish career pathways, and improved career advising and alumni networking to demonstrate the applicability of area studies expertise.

Curriculum innovation offers several approaches to address enrollment challenges. These include flexible language requirements and alternative competency assessments that lower entry barriers. Programs can provide clearer career pathway articulation and emphasize transferable skill development to address employability concerns. Contemporary issues such as business, technology, and environmental topics can be integrated with traditional humanities content. Experiential learning through study abroad programs, internships, and community engagement allows practical application of regional knowledge. However, this study acknowledges several important limitations that constrain the scope and generalizability of findings. IPEDS data captures only degree completions rather than course enrollment or broader student interest, limiting understanding of the full extent of engagement with South Asian topics across U.S. higher education. The observational nature of the data limits ability to establish causal relationships, as experimental or quasi-experimental designs would be necessary to strengthen causal claims about the factors driving enrollment patterns. The research examines institutional and policy factors but does not directly survey students about their decision-making processes, meaning that student perspectives and motivations remain largely inferred rather than directly documented. Longitudinal tracking of student cohorts would provide valuable insights into how initial interest in South Asian topics translates or fails to translate into major declarations and career choices.

Future research should examine several key areas. First, student decision-making processes regarding area studies majors can be explored through surveys and interviews. Second, career outcomes for area studies graduates should be assessed to determine whether employment concerns reflect actual market conditions. Third, alternative models for regional expertise development may be emerging outside traditional university structures and warrant investigation. Fourth, comparative international perspectives on area studies education could reveal whether these challenges are specific to U.S. institutions or represent broader trends in global higher education. Beyond South Asian Studies specifically, this research illuminates fundamental questions about knowledge production in contemporary universities that have implications for multiple fields and institutional priorities. If universities cannot sustain area studies programs, alternative institutions including think tanks, government agencies, and private sector organizations may fill the gap, but with potentially significant implications for critical inquiry and the independence of regional expertise from immediate policy or commercial interests.

South Asian Studies programs experienced consistent under-enrollment from 1997 to 2018. This pattern emerged from multiple intersecting factors: institutional marginalization, geopolitical paradoxes, and structural challenges affecting specialized area studies. The trend indicates a disconnect between South Asia's increasing global importance and corresponding academic investment levels. Institutions allocated limited resources to area studies programs, while students prioritized professional degree programs for career advancement. Geopolitical attention to the region did not translate into academic program growth with Cold War-era educational models creating structural vulnerabilities for these programs. Comparative analysis shows that South Asian Studies follows broader patterns affecting specialized area studies programs generally. This suggests the issue requires systemic solutions rather than field-specific interventions, raising important questions about institutional priorities and educational models. Current approaches have not sustained robust regional expertise development creating challenges for developing the cultural competency and linguistic capacity necessary for effective global engagement.

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To read more from Dr. Mohanan, read her statistical analysis supplemental paper titled, "Measuring Marginalization: A Statistical Examination of South Asian Studies Program Enrollment in U.S. Higher Education" here:

Measuring Marginalization A Statistical Examination of South Asian Studies Program Enrollm.

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