Treat humanities as a durably private good

Faculty and institutions should stop recruiting students into long academic pipelines when the labor market cannot absorb them; instead, humanities teaching should prioritize cultivating lifelong reading and writing as personal and civic skills rather than professionalizing lovers of literature into precarious PhD candidates. This reframes the problem from 'saving the discipline' to protecting students' time, mental health, and career prospects. — Shifts the policy and cultural debate from rescuing disciplines via funding and job creation to realigning educational practice with labor realities and personal flourishing, affecting admissions, advising, and departmental incentives.