The humanities are the supply line for society's leadership class. That is why WEB DuBois promoted classical education for the freed slaves, instead of just the job training that Washington Carver endorsed. Of course, the powers that be favored Carver's vision, since it meant the white elite would remain on top, so DuBois' chain of African American run classical education schools has all but disappeared and the NAACP he helped found has only become a special interest lobbying group.
Aren't there still as many, if not more, elites than there were last century? I think a much more realistic picture is that both the sciences and the humanities benefited from the GI bill and grew massively, but the sciences "left the house and earned their paycheck" while the humanities remained reliant on teaching. Now that the demand for education is not growing so fast in and of itself, the sciences have kept up the pace by recruiting support from industry while the humanities have had to face the music.