There was a time when a college degree was a quick route to
a long, stable career. Nowadays deciding what to study in college can become
the difference between success and a lifetime as an over-educated barista. PayScale.com has long been a great resource to
help students decide what to study and where to attend college – our College
Salary Report and College ROI Report summarize what
millions of people report earning, where they went to school, what they
studied and what they did with their degrees. The New York Times recently
invited PayScale’s Lead Economist, Katie Bardaro, to summarize our findings and
help answer the question “Which majors and careers have a reliable “return on
investment”?”.
Katie summarizes what PayScale has been seeing for years –
just having a college degree isn’t enough. In order to earn a healthy paycheck,
students need to be realistic about which subjects pay off, namely the STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math) majors. If you’re planning to
become an engineer, investing in a pricey education at a big-name school will
probably pay off. Lower-paying majors should be realistic about how much they
can really make after they graduate when choosing which college to attend.
That doesn’t mean that humanities majors should give up on
hopes of a healthy paycheck. Katie recommends that they incorporate some of
these skills into your studies by rounding out their education with courses in
statistics, economics or other related STEM fields. Even for traditionally
low-paying majors such as English, Arts and Education, “arming yourself with
these skills is one way to get a leg up in the labor market.”
Read the entire article, as well as complementing and
opposing viewpoints from other experts, here. You can also see our most recent
College ROI Report and College Salary Report for detailed information about
almost every college and major imaginable. And if you are trying to decide
which college to attend, or know somebody who is, use our College Selector Tool
to filter colleges by ROI, location, cost and more.
Choosing a college and a major is a big decision, but
PayScale is here with easy-to-understand data to make the choice easier. And we’d
love to hear how you would answer the questions raised in The New York Times’
Room for Debate feature in the comment section below.
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