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What's Your College Major Worth?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that with tuition rising and a weak job market everyone seems to be debating the value of a college degree. Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, says talking about the bachelor's degree in general doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because its financial payoff is heavily affected by what that degree is in and which college it is from. For the first time, researchers analyzed earnings based on 171 college majors and the differences are striking: For workers whose highest degree is a bachelor's, median incomes ranged from $29,000 for counseling-psychology majors to $120,000 for petroleum-engineering majors but the data also revealed earnings differences within groups of similar majors. Within the category of business majors, for instance, business-economics majors had the highest median pay, $75,000 while business-hospitality management earned $50,000. The study concludes that while there is a lot of variation in earnings over a lifetime, all undergraduate majors are worth it, even taking into account the cost of college and lost earnings with the lifetime advantage ranging from $1,090,000 for Engineering majors to $241,000 for Education majors. 'The bottom line is that getting a degree matters, but what you take matters more,' (PDF) concludes Carnevale." Last week we learned that dropping out of college could earn you $100,000 in start-up money for your business.
As a grad student in engineering that has seen nearly all his friends at the BS, MS, and PhD levels all able to find good paying, stable jobs, I had grown pretty tired of the stream of /. articles from Ivy League tenured professors of religion ranting about how our education system is all wrong.
What about the ones that did not find the job in their field, and are deep in .... with a debt, low paid job, insecurity, wasted time, etc.....How are they measured in this statistic?
I'm just paraphrasing some of the comments on TFA here. Some of the fields need a Masters or PHD to enter the profession. Not surprising that a bachelors degree in Psychology gets you diddly squat, if you need a Phd to get licensed.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Everyone knows that higher education is in a bubble. This type of article just show that everyone now recognizes it.
The causes are clear. The government subsidizes loans, making it easy for students to take on more debt and for colleges to jack up tuition. Companies just use a degree as a proxy for basic competency. The list can go on.
However, the real question is how will the bubble burst. What will happen? I have no idea. But it can't go on. You can't have 18 year olds wrecking their entire financial future for a degree.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Here's my anecdote/data point: I graduated last August from with a professional degree from a respected state university. Immediately thereafter, I was unemployed for six moths, and as of right now, I'm doing contract work and earning less take-home pay (after you figure in self-employment taxes) than I did the summer after I graduated from high school. So for me, figuring expenses, lost wages, etc., college works out be worth about -$200,000.
This economy sucks.
FWIW, you can get a minor in what you love, and a major in what will earn. No one is forcing you to gear your entire curriculum to the Benjamins.
I did that eons ago, with a major in EE, but a minor in history. I've long since translated the engineering skills to the IT world, but the history I still have and treasure. It happens that I love the engineering side of things, so it fit me in either case (yes, I still have a bench at home, though time doesn't permit me much for playing at it).
If the field you truly love doesn't make any money, so what? Be happy with the less luxurious lifestyle, but living a life that matches your passions. FFS, if you love doing archaeology, even though the life would be pretty poverty-stricken, then by all means *do it*.
The guy who dies with a smile on his face is the one who wins, not the one whose bank account is the biggest.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
In 2002 the US Census Bureau calculated that the value of an average degree over a lifetime was $2.1 million
Has the value dropped that much in 10 years? Taking inflation into account, the value's gone from roughly $2.6 million down to less than $1 million? I know we're comparing average to median here, but I have a hard time believing Warren Buffett et al are skewing the numbers by a factor of 2.5+.
I kinda said this in another post, but I think it should be a requirement of a student loan to research and detail how you plan to turn your degree into an actual job. As you said, a lot of people getting degrees are doing so because they've been told degree = better job. This is true where degree = computer science or engineering. This is generally not true where degree = music therapy.
Not saying oddball degrees can't result in a job.. and if you are _really_ pationate about something like that, then I think people should go for it... just do some research and figure out how you are going to make a living with it _before_ getting the loan.
I would also note that the ability to live very frugally for a few years after graduating and working a McJob throughout school/summers does a lot for avoiding the lifelong crippling debt thing.
The point of getting a degree from college isn't to learn vocational skills, it's to more generally broaden yourself and to learn how to learn. The whole notion that your degree should directly influence your earnings is reflective of how today many people go to college to get vocational training. If you want to teach mathematics, you shouldn't get an education degree in college, you should get a mathematics degree, and then go on to teaching from there. If you want to go into business, learn some more fundamental skills like statistics and critical thinking, intern over your summers, and then go to business school for your MBA.
Perhaps even more troubling is the notion that the sole goal in life is to make more money. What about doing a job that you enjoy, even if it pays less?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Well, what are you going to do with it?
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Dropping out of college might be good for some people, but....
and maybe I am dumb, but I learned a LOT my last two years of college. Those were the hardest years (as far as my major was concerned), and also where I got to take the most interesting classes like AI and compiler design. I strongly suggest not dropping out of school. On the other hand it worked for Bill Gates.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Develop a technical bent and become a technical writer?
Develop a journalistic bent and become a journalist?
Become a secretary, writing out reports on behalf of, and to be read by, people with other skills?
There's an astonishingly large number of very bad writers out there and the one thing a BA in English MIGHT be able to convince people of is that you're able to string sentences together.
Frankly, it's taking a fair amount of discipline not to get four or five degrees, simply because I haven't run out of fields which absolutely fascinate me. Along the way, I'm finding very few classes I don't actually enjoy, and it's certainly more fun than real work.
If I was just in it for the money, I'd be a mainframe expert -- it's easy, but there are few enough of them (because no one wants to do it) that it's also very well paid. But then I would hate my life. As it is, I'm likely to end up in some sort of software development, but that's not going to stop me from studying the more interesting bits of biology and cosmology, because the universe is awesome.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
well, I believe some sociology major with mod points just went over the comments here, thus you can see the results....
You can't handle the truth.
Well, what are you going to do with it?
I knew that was coming and I imagine you know what I will say. I have no plans for a job, maybe teaching or writing? I'm a musician in my spare time and I dabble in programming (why else would I be here?) and I actually have a pretty good set-up for school. I live in Montreal and pay a very minimal amount for university (about $1500 a semester, cheapest in Canada) and I'm at a small Liberal Arts College. All we do is read literature, philosophy, history and political science and then discuss it/write papers. So basically, I'm getting a degree to read (a lot) and write.
I still haven't answered your question. After my undergraduate I will probably move to Europe (I speak English, French and German) and study comparative literature or history and keep learning language (next on the list is Dutch and Russian). Mostly I'm interested in German history and Marxist history (not that I am a Marxist, but historically it fascinates me). Teaching is an extremely competitive profession in universities and I am not relying on getting a job - I know I could be waiting more than a decade - but for now I am not worried about that. i definitely enjoy what I study and even if it involved working odd jobs and living cheap for the rest of my life it would be the only way I would be happy.
once you get past the race and gender tables. The actual facts about the comparative values of various majors starts around Table 30.
The problem with looking at this from a race/gender perspective is that the data tells us almost nothing about why there is a difference between these categories. For example, the study reveals that Petroleum is a specialty major, that 100% of the people who majored in it are men, and that this major has the highest median income.
OK, facts noted. Does this mean that men are better suited to be Petroleum Engineers than women? There's no way to tell from this data set. Maybe women would be great petroleum engineers, but they don't choose it because it sounds like it would be uninteresting or unpleasant or too inflexible.
What we _can learn from the data is that if you want a major that will bring in a steady, terrific income, Petroleum Engineering and other specialty majors are pretty awesome. The Study makes it pretty clear that people with "hard" majors make about twice as much as people with "soft" majors, so if money is your thing, pick a hard major. Put another way, if what you love to do is a soft major, prepare yourself for a life where you will never be tempted by the siren call of enormous wealth.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
There are a few Tech / IT apprenticeship / training / programs out there that are not your Tech school / University of Phoenix type school. But are a real training / internship. As there are a lot of people that are not cut out for College or can't pay for it. There needs to be more hands on and less tech the test / the book type CS classes. Also in 4 year College there is way to much math that has little use in IT. Electrical, HVAC and plumbing is not 4 years in a class room loaded with theory no it's mixed class room with real on the job! and the class room is a lot hands on as well.
that of all possible career paths, education has the lowest financial incentive? What does this portend for our future?
Uh, Bill gates and Sergei Brin were smart enough (and worked hard enough in school) to get into the most selective undergraduate, and graduate programs in the world.
Quit school. Read Shakespeare on your own. Work as a programmer (you wanted to learn languages, right?) or a translator until you figure out what you *really* want to go to school for (theatre?).
You should also emigrate, there are better countries than Canada to be poor in.
Getting odd jobs and bare subsistence wages is not living the dream, it is preventing you from doing what you love. Money does not equal happiness, but you tell me that after the late shift at Starbucks.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Well, I know with what I do in computer game programming, I wouldn't hire an apprentice. There is simply very little work for those who are not bringing their own expertise, since doing takes seconds but figuring out what to do takes hours, people are there to figure out what to do, not to be shown what to do. Resignations and redundancies are so close that training someone for more than a few weeks makes very little sense from an economic perspective. Guys who are good, especially really creative programmers tend to be impossible to work with until they are in their mid 20s, if someone doesn't believe they are God at 19, they've probably not got the meager talent required to impress themselves and aren't going to be much good anyway. Best that someone goes to university where they get plenty of challenges, people to share with, qualified teachers and plenty of time to practice their trade rather than being stuck doing the boring work, probably badly in a team that doesn't need them.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
There are lots of jobs out there that open up just because you have a degree. Several of the managers at my work turned out to have weird degrees like art history rather than business. Even though a friend of mine is good with computer and has experience, he was only eligible for his current job because he had a history degree also. My uncle with a degree in fine arts ended up the plant manager because he had a degree and the other candidates didn't. While the most important things in getting a job are connections, experience, and then education as last, a degree, any degree, is often a bullet point on many jobs and if nothing else will put you ahead of those without. If you have the connections and the experience, just about any degree of suitable level will do.
What terribly useless degree did I get? I got a B.S. in biology. I have a Masters in genetics. I'm currently in a top PhD program in biology. I have two publications, both from undergraduate research. But my qualifications have no relation to my argument - I learned that in philosophy 101, reasoning & argument.
The more relevant point: I went to a small liberal arts school. I took classes in music, English, philosophy, the sciences, foreign languages, economics... and I'm a more informed, well-rounded person because of it. I'm also a better critical thinker, and I can write coherently and express ideas (something not taken for granted these days, unfortunately). If I choose to go the academic route, the pay will pale with respect to the amount of time and effort I'll put in, and I'll be okay with that because I enjoy the subject.
Of course you're going to learn skills and knowledge that pertain to your field of interest while in college. My point is I didn't go to college to become a biologist, I went to college and came out prepared to become a biologist (hence the graduate school afterwards), and also an educated member of society. The field of biology is poised to undergo some of the biggest changes yet, and any set of skills that I'll learn today (microarrays, sequencing gels, etc.) are bound to be out of date in 20 years. Those aren't the important skills that I learned, but that's what a vocational training teaches.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
I looked through the stats in the pdf, and it looks like only about 40% on average graduate.
Presumably they did however take out loans while they were studying so you have millions out there with student loan debt, but not even a degree to boost earnings.
Does indeed seem like there might be a problem.
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What kind of voter are you if you can't think critically, or if you don't understand politics and science? Can you manage your financial decisions without and understanding of math and business? Think about what a better neighbor, parent, and traveler you would be, if you could speak a foreign language.
Answer: an ethnocentric American Republican.