Not All College Majors Are Created Equal

Not All College Majors Are Created Equal

and an even more interesting study from Georgetown:

Hard Times

Major findings of the report:

1. Choice of major substantially affects employment prospects and earnings.

2. People who make technology are better off than people who use technology.

3. In general, majors that are linked to occupations have better employment prospects than majors focused on general skills. But, some occupation specific majors, such as Architecture, were hurt by the recession and fared worse than general skills majors.

4. For many, pursuing a graduate degree may be the best option until the economy recovers. But, not all graduate degrees outperform all BA’s on employment

 

I started to read the first article and just stopped when I hit that little table on the left. The arts/liberal arts people have a higher unemployment rate and their average salary is a bit lower than most other categories and that might cause some people to say, "Well that's a 90% employment rate. I'll take my chances." But before you sign up for that English Lit major you've got to ask yourself one more question.

Hmmm. It seems like 90% of theose English majors are employed but I wonder what they are doing? Garbage guy? Landscaping? Security guard? If all you wanted was low end employment you could have done that right out of high school and then at least you wouldn't be 100K in debt right now.

 

It's like I have always told my kids: figure out what you actually want to do for a living first, then go get the education/training you need to do that job. It might mean college; it might not. My oldest son is 22 and still doesn't know what he wants to do and he still hasn't gotten an education beyond high school. That's OK with me. Why waste time and money on a degree that you may not use until you figure things out? My younger son thinks he might want to get into graphic design, and you don't necessarily need a BA to do that. He still has time to decide.

We still need people who make and build things, and that may require vocational/technical training. My bosses at work all have degrees...bachelors, masters and even doctorates. None of their degrees apply to what they are doing now.