C arEErS E ditiOn 2011
study tells students What
their major is Worth
phILADeLphIA (Ap) - The choice of
undergraduate major in college is strongly
tied to a student’s future earnings, with the
highest-paying majors providing salaries of
about 300 percent more than the lowest-
paying, according to a study released
Tuesday.
Based on first-of-its-kind Census data, the
report by Georgetown University in
Washington also found that majors are high-
ly segregated by race and gender.
College graduates overall make 84 per-
cent more over a lifetime than those with
only high school diplomas, the study said.
But further analysis of 171 majors shows
that various undergraduate majors can lead
to significantly different median wages.
Petroleum engineering majors make
about $120,000 a year, compared with
$29,000 annually for counseling psycholo-
gy majors, researchers found. Math and
computer science majors earn $98,000 in
salary while early childhood education
majors get paid about $36,000.
“It’s important that you go to college and
get a (bachelor’s degree), but it’s almost
three to four times more important what you
take,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of
Georgetown’s Center on Education and the
Workforce. “The majors that are most pop-
ular are not the ones that make the most
money.”
“What’s it Worth? The Economic Value of
College Majors” analyzes data from the
2009 American Community Survey, whose
results were released last year. It’s the first
time the Census asked individuals about
their undergraduate majors, enabling
researchers to tie in salary data, Carnevale
said.
The study found that white men are con-
centrated in the highest-earning majors,
including engineering and pharmaceutical
sciences, while women gravitate toward the
lowest-earning majors like education, art
and social work.
The report also categorized the 171
majors into 15 fields, discovering different
majors led to different industries. About 43
percent of law and public policy majors end
up in public administration, but only 13 per-
cent of social science majors do. A higher
portion of social science majors end up in
finance, researchers found.
Other findings:
The most popular major group is busi-
ness, accounting for 25 percent of all stu-
dents. The least popular are industrial arts
and agriculture, with 1.6 percent each.
White men have higher median earnings
across all fields except three. Asians pull
down the top median salaries in law and
public policy ($55,000), psychology and
social work ($48,000), and biology and life
science ($53,000).
The field with the highest concentrations
of whites is agriculture and natural
resources (90 percent), while the highest
concentration of Asians is in computers and
mathematics (16 percent). Law and public
policy has the highest concentration of
African-Americans (14 percent) and
Hispanics (10 percent).
Fields with virtually no unemployment:
geological and geophysical engineering,
military technologies, pharmacology and
school student counseling.
Fields with the highest unemployment,
ranging from 16 percent to 11 percent:
social psychology, nuclear engineering, and
educational administration and supervision.
The data is important considering the high
cost of a college degree and the significant
loan burdens taken on by some students to
obtain one, Carnevale said.
“We don’t have a system in the United
States where we align what you take with
career prospects,” Carnevale said. “Nobody
ever tells you when you go to college what
happened to the other people who took it
before you.”
The researchers’ longitudinal look at life-
time earnings seems to echo a more short-
term analysis of the job market by the
National Association of Colleges and
Employers.
The Bethlehem, Pa.-based group reports
that engineering majors account for seven
of the top 10 highest-paying majors for the
class of 2011. The other three are computer
science, information science and business
systems networking/telecommunications.
Chemical engineering heads the list with
an average salary offer of nearly $67,000,
according the group’s spring survey.
June 8, 2011 The Skanner Careers Edition page 3