Not too long ago, NUS revealed that their enrollment in the Arts and Social Sciences enrollment has dropped by about a third. You can read the finer details here. This has caused some consternation online, which is no dissimilar to the shenanigans when it was said on mainstream media that the arts were non-essential during the pandemic. 

The question is how serious this is. Are Singaporeans abandoning the arts and humanities en masse, being more attracted to qualifications that can land better paying jobs?

It isn't simple, as the intake of humanities majors in NTU and SMU was not hit so badly. The main reason is that NUS decided to merge the Arts and Science faculties, so students of the combined school had more flexibility to choose their majors. Naturally, the folks with study loans obviously want something that can get them higher-paying jobs, so