Most underemployed majors according to the U.S. Census American Community Survey

Environmental Studies
50.2%
Medical Technicians
52.0%
Marketing
52.1%
Ethnic Studies
52.5%
English Language
52.5%
Sociology
53.5%
Philosophy
53.6%
International Affairs
53.9%
History
54.0%
Communications
54.1%
Anthropology
54.2%
General Business
55.0%
Miscellaneous Technologies
55.3%
Mass Media
56.2%
Art History
56.2%
Fine Arts
56.5%
Animal and Plant Sciences
56.8%
Public Policy and Law
57.6%
Agriculture
58.7%
Business Management
58.8%
Liberal Arts
59.5%
Leisure and Hospitality
59.8%
Performing Arts
63.0%
Criminal Justice
73.2%

https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market/college-labor-market_compare-majors.html

 

It's very obvious now.

If you want to get a job, get one of these degrees:

1. Computer Science, Data Science
2. Information Systems / IT / Information Science
3. Engineering
4. Medical
5. Business Administration (top universities only)
6. Law (top universities only)

Other majors will suffer greatly unless they're lucky.
It could be that other majors were created to torture your life and steal your money.

95% of people should go to college to get these "employable" degrees.
95% of people shouldn't go to college to get other degrees that make them unemployable.

 

Well, sure. LOL. It is not even my main source of income. It never has been. LOL

History
54.0%

 

My favorite classes in college are listed there! I loved anthropology, sociology, history, art, and philosophy. I went to community college for 3 years because of it. I majored in Computer Science though because I thought job prospects would be better.

 

I really don't see anything surprising in the data. The more interesting "fun" degrees, IMHO, provide less employment opportunities. I have a good friend that went to college for six years and took whatever he wanted. When he decided to stop going to college they looked at his credits and he got a double major in philosophy and art. He worked his whole career in construction. He didn't get rich but he did okay and enjoyed his work. He still paints art and likes to discuss stuff in philosophical terms though.

 

I'm surprised that Crim Justice fares poorly. It's one of the most popular majors out there.

 

I'm surprised too. When interviewing for faculty positions, CJ was either the most popular major or one of the most popular at each school. At the school I am at now, of the nearly 2500 new/transfer students this fall, over 110 declared CJ as their major. We have over 70 majors, so I think CJ's enrollment is impressive.

 

I've known that it has a high underemployment rate for years, and I'm not the least bit surprised. Most of the CJ-related jobs that require a degree are in federal law enforcement, social services, and parole/probation. Social services and parole/probation are usually not what male CJ students have in mind. Corrections, security, municipal law enforcement, and legal administrative work are the most common jobs for CJ graduates, and a large majority of those jobs do not require a 4-year degree.

I've come across so many parents giving bad advice to their kids by telling them that criminal justice is the more practical and employable alternative to sociology and psychology. A lot of people choosing this major don't know that CJ is just an interdisciplinary social science.

Being extremely popular just means there's more competition. That's why business management and general business have such high underemployment rates. The U.S. pumps out about 300k new business administration, management, leadership, and general business graduates every year.

 

It's not clear how they calculate underemployment. Is that being employed in a job with a degree that does not require that degree? Because that's an enormous spectrum of jobs, including many that pay very well. For example, a Salesforce Administrator with a couple years experience will often make 6 figures but you don't need a degree to do that job. The ~75,000 Salesforce professionals in the ecosystem are all "underemployed."

 

I mean... that would contribute to it being high on the list. The more people get a degree, the less likely one is going to be able to find a job in that field. Business admin is another degree that is over-hyped and over-achieved.

 

It may be anecdotal, and I’d love to see stats on this, but I had a sense back in the early 2000s that there was an inflection point whereby Criminal Justice began to replace Psychology as the major for the “undecided.”

Given the prison industrial complex America has established, I’m surprised the CJ majors would be so unemployed.

 

On the flip side, I'm glad to see Nursing considered one of the "best college majors." 10 Best College Majors For The Future 2022 | Universities.com

The ROI on a Nursing ASN or BSN is impressive. Additionally, I know people who took the pre-med courses concurrently and were accepted to medical school or continued graduate school to become a nurse practitioner or anesthetist. Of course, none of my kids want to consider nursing, healthcare or medicine.

 

It's not unemployed, it's underemployed. The latter has to do with being employed in a position that does not require the degree you hold (a bachelor's in CJ in this case).

 

It's my long-held observation that one's network and networking skills are far more significant in career development than the subject matter and level of one's education

 

Totally agree!
After my first job, nobody ever asked me to see proof of degrees anymore. It was the skill set you bring to the table that would or wouldn't convince them to hire you.
When I mentioned at work that I wanted to enter a Ph.D. to increase my chances of becoming a project manager, my director said: "A Ph.D. would only serve you if you wanted to teach. If becoming a project manager is your goal, gather plenty of practical work experience as that will do just fine."

 

As a follow up, I tried to search this out. Unfortunately I couldn't find a chart which which had Criminal Justice and Psychology on the same graph. It was either one or the other, or grouping them together into "Social Science." The mystery continues.

 

Demand shift. Perhaps that complex has become such a big business that it now requires MBAs to run it efficiently, rather than CJ grads?