English majors are becoming an increasingly rare commodity.

The share of new bachelor’s degrees awarded in the humanities dropped below 12% in 2015 for the first time since 1987, according to a recent analysis released by Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences which tracks data on the state of humanities fields. The drop comes after 10 years in a row of declines, including a 5% drop from the previous year and a 9.5% decline from a recent high point in humanities degrees in 2012.

The findings come amid growing concern about the future of the liberal arts in favor of degrees with a more clearly defined career path. Traditional fields, like English and history, saw the biggest declines among humanities majors, while fields like communications and gender studies fared better. Meanwhile, engineering, health and medical sciences and the natural sciences, were the only major fields to experience an increase in the share of bachelor’s degrees conferred over the past 10 years, according to the analysis.

Robert Townsend, the director of the Washington office for the Academy of Arts & Sciences, said the data backs up what he’s been hearing from colleagues in the field — that humanities degrees are becoming less popular. “These numbers show us that the perception certainly has some reality behind it,” he said. “The drops in some of the older disciplines are both extended trends and also certainly larger than some had feared.”

The analysis doesn’t point to any specific reasons why students may be opting for humanities majors less frequently. Townsend said it’s possible students are getting signals from either their parents or schools to pursue majors outside of the liberal arts. Whatever the source, given the emphasis in recent years on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) amid an environment of rising college costs and growing student debt, it’s no surprise students are turning to fields with decent employment and earnings prospects.

One theory: Advance Placement courses and other opportunities that allow students to place out of introductory humanities courses may mean that students never get the chance to encounter an instructor or class that pushes them in the direction of pursuing a humanities major, Townsend said. “How I became a history major is precisely that experience,” he said.

Though students may be opting out of humanities degrees in search of better job and earnings prospects, Townsend said his research indicates that liberal arts majors do fine in the job market (even if history majors typically earn less than their colleagues with engineering degrees). What’s more, they may be getting more valuable, as employers increasingly look for workers who are good communicators.

English majors who graduated in 2015 received a mean starting salary 13.6% higher than those who graduated the year before, according to a 2016 survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. And if billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is to be believed, employees with the ability to think critically will be more valuable in our automated future than those with more clearly defined skills like accountants and programmers.

“There’s not a lot of evidence that shows (college graduates with humanities degrees) end up significantly worse than their counterparts from other majors,” Townsend said.