Info is available about which college majors pay off, students aren’t using it

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/college-major-salary/2020/12/24/cad0f5de-44b3-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html

by pseudolus • 6 years ago

59 60 6 years ago

washingtonpost.com

ta988• 6 years ago

Not everybody is getting into a job just because it makes money. People have passions and ambitions to have an impact on the world sometimes. Doesn't mean that you can't do both at the same time. I chose to not work for one of those ad-tech companies, would have multiplied my salary by 10 easily just at entry level, but optimizing a system so people click more on ads is not what I want to spend my life doing. Of course you could take the big salary and do good with the money... Later... but I don't see many people around me doing that efficiently and a lot of what they give is wasted by people that know how to abuse them for "a good cause". And in the meantime more important work has to be done anyway.

clmay2• 6 years ago

Yes, what a reductive, bogus article! The assumption that 1) people choose majors based solely on ROI and 2) you cannot enter a field outside the domain or discipline you studied in college are both ridiculous and flawed.

Even if one were to take the lucrative salary at an ad-tech or fin-tech company, and then invest that in "effective altruism", you'd likely never offset the net harm, even if you contributed 100% of your salary.

ytwySXpMbS• 6 years ago

“effective altruism”

It’s funny because it’s really a justification to be selfish, the carbon offset of bad ethics.

dmarchand90• 6 years ago

Do you think you could maybe elaborate why you think the harm by ad optimization is so severe it could never be offset?

tracerbulletx• 6 years ago

Agreed. The only issue is university education is priced like an investment in future earnings that simply isn't justified.

onecommentman5• 6 years ago

In some majors.

mech422• 6 years ago

Regardless of whether it's the 'best' way to do things... I see employment prospects coming up more and more with young people. Pretty much everyone I know feels jobs these days are very insecure and can be gone in a heartbeat. So a career with high demand and good pay is seen as a bit of 'insurance' against the bad times.

foogazi2• 6 years ago

Not everybody is getting into a job just because it makes money. People have passions and ambitions to have an impact on the world sometimes.

What percentage of the jobs in this world fall in the “impact on the world” category ?

convolvatron• 6 years ago

why is everyone forgetting suitability? maybe i'm just not a good behavioral fit for chartered accountancy, or virologist or civil engineer.

impact aside there are some jobs that i'll be better at and will enjoy more.

efitz• 6 years ago

What gets me is why isn’t major (as a proxy for future earnings) considered as part of approving student loans?

hartator• 6 years ago

Public guarantees.

someguydave• 6 years ago

Because the entire system is a scam to transmit federal subsidies to education employees.

pengstrom• 6 years ago

Well, the simplest reason I can imagine is that not all good things can be measured in dollars.

smegcicle• 6 years ago

Crippling debt can be measured in dollars, and that's by far the most reliable outcome of state-guaranteed loans for non-marketable majors.

lotsofpulp• 6 years ago

Because taxpayers are guaranteeing it. It’s how you get elected by both “helping” students and keeping taxes low.

Long term, you’re harming students and taxpayers, but short term the optics look like you helped and you don’t have a cash outlay for helping anyone so it doesn’t affect the budget.

wmeredith• 6 years ago

Important note: defunding higher education also helps people get elected. It's been going for decades. My partner works for a state university system in a red a state and their budget has been cut every year since the 90's. People like to point at bloated administrative salaries and facilities when they talk about skyrocketing education costs, but the fact of the matter is that state schools receive a fraction of the funding they used to, and that makes for the majority of rising tuition costs.

lern_too_spel• 6 years ago

Bad policy.

gcheong• 6 years ago

For one because you want a society that isn’t purely optimized for immediate earning potential as breakthroughs and advances that push society forward can come from multiple areas. And for another perhaps you want to be able to provide the opportunity to study a subject regardless of whether you can pay for it outright or not.

pdonis3• 6 years ago

advances that push society forward can come from multiple areas

"Multiple areas" that could produce advances that can push society forward is still a much narrower category than "areas that are eligible for student loans".

perhaps you want to be able to provide the opportunity to study a subject regardless of whether you can pay for it outright or not

Students can study any subject they want for free over the Internet. Major institutions have their entire curriculum available for free online. There is no reason why taxpayers should have to subsidize college tuition for that.

gruez2• 6 years ago

advances that push society forward can come from multiple areas

dumb question: what "advances that push society forward" has come from the humanities, in the past century?

realjohng• 6 years ago

Maybe because it's behind a paywall .. jk

bra-ket• 6 years ago

https://archive.is/IBZMr

0-_-0• 6 years ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...

torstenvl• 6 years ago

For some definition of "is available." If these 17yos are already capable of conducting research based on primary sources and not provided to them in a structured learning environment, why do they need to go to college?

The implicit blame-placing in "students aren't using it" is unhelpful. We're mostly talking about people who, by definition, haven't even graduated high school.# If DoE wants students armed with this information, it should do a better job of setting policy for guidance counselors.

# Yes, there are non-traditional students but they are in the minority. Yes, people can switch majors, but there's enormous cost to doing so for the populations we're talking about.

hemloc_io• 6 years ago

Exactly, this is what gets me about the student debt debate as well.

For some reason we've structured the system with the expectation that 17 yr olds are perfectly rational actors.

anotheryou• 6 years ago

Passion was the only guidance I had it that age. Hard to become fascinated by hings you haven't really touched before; Or just in school, which might actually actively discourage you.

Hobbies are the experience outside of school you have when making the decision what to study.

commandlinefan• 6 years ago

Well, it’s not as if every major takes the same effort - the harder ones “pay off” faster.

analog312• 6 years ago

I suspect that even if hardness or effort could really be quantified and compared, there would be some glaring counterexamples to this rule. I know someone who is a classical violin performance major. She has a very heavy, difficult workload.

onecommentman5• 6 years ago

Which then brings up the painful question, with today’s mountain of recorded music and audio and AI techniques to make Joe Average sound like Heifitz, how many classical violinists do we, as a society, need?

If, in a population of 7B+, the children of top .1% in wealth can supply that, then they pay their own way. They can also more easily economically survive the ups and downs of a musician’s career.

Just doesn’t seem fair, though...reinforcing the natural elitist bent in classical music.

olliej• 6 years ago

Part of the problem stems from US universities seeming to charge the same amount for every course.

Some courses are necessarily more expensive to run than others.

forgotmysn• 6 years ago

this info implies a pretty narrow view about why people chose a field of study.

analog312• 6 years ago

Looking up the highest paying major, and then choosing to study it, is not even a realistic option for most students. Many college majors have fairly selective entrance requirements, such as math and freshman GPA scores. To major in engineering at the nearby big ten university, you have to be accepted into it, after your freshman year. You have to pass the "weeder" course.

Nursing is an interesting example from the article. However, imagine a nurse who is just not suited to dealing with people, or following rules.

In addition, majoring in something that you're not sincerely interested in, is likely to be a severe if not crippling handicap. Doing with punishing effort what your classmates are doing as a game, semester after semester, might be effectively prohibitive beyond a certain level.

onecommentman5• 6 years ago

I think the argument isn’t that you can’t study what you want, but that you personally will be on the hook for paying for the privilege, now or later.

Rather than Society, through increased wages, paying you to study (after a suitable employment lag).

If your major is your passion, and you don’t need certification, then there is no better time to be an autodidact and skip all the bills. Online books, free online lectures and content exploiting modern production values...sheesh.

If the profession requires the certification, then they need to pony up the extra money for your wages to pay off the debt, or accept the fact that it will be an wealthy-class playground.

paledot2• 6 years ago

University didn't go super well for me, but in retrospect the experiences I treasure the most are the ones I never would've sought out on my own. If you see college as a long form of `#import book`, sure, but that's exactly what it shouldn't be.

anoncake• 6 years ago

You can be passionate about something but still benefit from external structure

novia• 6 years ago

imagine a nurse who is just not suited to dealing with people, or following rules.

What's a good job for someone who is not suited to dealing with people or following the rules?

tigger0jk• 6 years ago

I think there's an idea out there that a this is a life plan that will succeed:

- Go to college

- Take loans to pay for it if you need to

- Get a degree in something that interests you

- Get a career in that field

- Make money, buy a house, have a family

It seems that this vision is becoming less true than it used to be or has more caveats (try to save money on the schools you attend, pick a degree that pays decently and that there are lots of available jobs in, find a cheaper market to buy your house in).

I think the life planning of people entering college has taken quite a while to catch up as this shift has occurred. Although it does seem to be taking hold now as more and more people discover that they really struggle to get out from under student loan debt, can't get jobs in their relevant fields, or find they can't buy a home.

I think it's good to see data like this put together, and more crucially to present some realistic perspectives to kids about what possible paths they might take in life and what the risks/rewards of those plans might look like.

paledot2• 6 years ago

That was the life plan the boomers took for granted, except the college part was largely optional. Now it's our fault that we don't live the same magical charmed lives they did.

throwawaygulf• 6 years ago

Some college majors are net negatives to society (gender/women studies, among others). These should not be supported by government backed loans, and should not be guaranteed by taxpayers.

dirkt• 6 years ago

The concept of choosing a field to work in because "it has the highest pay off" is so utterly alien to me that I don't even know what to say.

gruez2• 6 years ago

I don't get it. Is that the impression you're getting from it? You don't have to choose the highest paying field, you just have to choose a field that you like and pays well, and acknowledge that choosing a field you love most might come at the expense of finances in the future.

seba_dos1• 6 years ago

I happen to be interested a lot in a field that pays off well - I'm lucky. I can't imagine studying something that's not my thing just because there's money in it and I certainly wouldn't expect that of anyone else, it would be a nightmare.

rk06• 6 years ago

sounds like something useful for student loan companies. if the student is in "safe" major decrease interests, and if they are in risky one, increase the rate. and market the reasoning.

and voila, students now have incentive for cheaper and reliable courses. which results in better ROI on student loans

fakedang• 6 years ago

The issue is that this might flood talented people to majors they don't like, yet who would be employable otherwise, while also being unfair to those who get a good job. Back in finance, I've met investment bankers and consultants who've majored in music and history. And yes, they often bring a unique perspective into the fold.

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

Is it, though?

Because unless the data is controlled for factors that influence outcomes independent of school or degree program, what you actually have is data on the degree programs that attract the people that will be successful.

That's nearly 100% what the outcome data on pre-college schools in the US tells you, so I'd be surprised if the college degree data did not have significantly the same problem.

Info is available about which college majors pay off, students aren’t using it

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