One of the most important changes in American higher education over the last 30 years has been the gradual shrinking of the old arts and sciences core of undergraduate education and the expansion of occupational and professional programs. Occupational fields have accounted for approximately 60% of bachelors' degrees in recent years, up from 45% in the 1960s, and hundreds of institutions now award 80% or more of their degrees in these fields. In this article, the authors attempt to answer two key questions about the rise of the practical arts in American four-year colleges and universities. First, is this shift a historical departure, or is it instead a continuation of the dominant tendency in American higher education in the twentieth century, a tendency which was interrupted briefly in the 1960s by an unusual conjunction of forces favorable to the arts and sciences? Second, what institutional characteristics are most strongly associated with the production of a large number of degrees in occupational-professional fields as opposed to the arts and sciences?