What's Your College Major Worth? 433
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.
Re:Finally some sanity (Score:5, Informative)
There is nothing wrong with going to school, but your friends would have good paying stable jobs with or without their education. The criticism of the education system is that they are selling a dream that doesn't exist. You cannot buy your way into a good job. There are still a million others reasons why you should go to college, but if your only concern is future profitability, you are wasting your time.
Re:Finally some sanity (Score:4, Informative)
It is a sad reality that lots of jobs actually deny you the ability to progress in management at most companies. The most prominent in my mind was a blog post telling the story of a young man who was interested in working in insurance; he repeatedly turned down jobs as an adjuster or agent because having worked as one would permanently brand him as "not management material". The comments to the post clearly stated that he was absolutely right to do so - if you don't start work in the management-trainee path, you'll never get on the path that leads to the C level. A few people told him to go get a job as a management trainee at a McDonald's, as it would do him more good.