The University of Exeter recently made headlines with its proposed budget cuts mostly centered around its humanities departments. However, the University of Exeter is not the only university in the UK, or around the globe for that matter, facing similar budget cuts at the expense of the humanities. The often-cited reason as to why these programs are on the chopping block, universities bring up decreased student enrollment and therefore a lack of tuition revenue. Therefore, many administrators want to focus on technical degrees and STEM to boost enrollment, as that is what the labor market up until now has required. 

Unfortunately, even computer science majors are now facing the impacts of AI and automation, which are gutting many previously high-paying jobs. The humanities contribute many skills that are important in this economy, especially the importance of fact-checking AI output.

This is also true in terms of translation; the biggest issue with machine-translated text is that the machine does not understand content or culture. So while it can be a very valuable tool to speed up the translation process, there is still the need for actual translators to get the best possible translation. Language is malleable, just like the culture that creates it, so some meaning is learned through the experience of the culture that can not be conveyed to a machine at this point and perhaps never. While many companies, just like university administrators, see a possible cost-saving aspect in the use of AI and machine translations, they are creating a problem for the future, as many translators and translation agencies will be disappearing from the landscape; but with regulation changes in the EU as well as pushback against data centers, they might create their own economic bottleneck in the future.

However, as a translation agency we believe that AI integration should go in conjunction with highly trained language specialists not without them. This in turn also requires sturdy language programs and humanities programs at universities that also help them understand and utilize these tools effectively.

Sources:

https://voi.id/en/technology/587506#google_vignette

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/14/university-job-cuts-humanities-social-sciences

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/saving-humanities