What the Top 1% of Earners Majored In

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/what-the-top-1-of-earners-majored-in/?smid=tw-nytimeseconomix&seid=auto#h%5BBiaIow,1%5D

by pitdesi • 15 years ago

26 15 15 years ago

economix.blogs.nytimes.com

zach• 15 years ago

I am blown away to see that Art History cracked the top ten on this list. My mom was an art history major, while I insisted on studying computer science, even though apparently there's no money in it. What a rebel I am!

Then again, in part knowing the people my mom went to college with, I can't help but suspect that art history is what you major in if you're a bit aimless, yet are expected by your very rich parents to graduate from college.

itg• 15 years ago

Friends of mine who went the ivy league route could pretty much major in whatever they want and get a great finance/consulting career after they graduate. If you have some relevant internships and do well on interviews, they really don't care about your major, as long as you are smart and personable.

emmelaich• 15 years ago

You might enjoy "How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-06/postrel-how-art-his...

LearnYouALisp2• 15 years ago

I would like to see how the representation changes within the "top 1%". Maybe in a little while I can put the data into Excel and see.

yuxt• 15 years ago

that would be interesting to see in the span of the last 50 years

LearnYouALisp2• 15 years ago

Oh, sorry, by "representation" I meant the proportion represented in the "top one percent" relative to the proportion in the total or remaining population. For example, are some fields more highly represented at the top than others?

count• 15 years ago

And to think my friends all chided me for not getting a CS degree and going with Economics instead!

ScottBurson• 15 years ago

I think we need to be a little careful with this. The article talks about reaching the top 1% as a goal, but if that's a goal held by much more than 1% of the population, a lot of people are going to feel like failures. I don't know that we need to encourage any more of this kind of competition.

Far better, I think, would be to talk about the changing economy and what kind of education is most likely to give people a fulfilling career with a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.

kristopolous• 15 years ago

Econ, IR, Poly Sci; all considered, at least my school, to be the fall-back majors when you didn't have the chops for things like biochemistry or physics. I stuck with Engineering because I wanted to do it and also, because it was hard; thus supposedly more rewarding in the long term. But this is almost telling me that the easy way out was the right thing to do ... confused.

barrybe• 15 years ago

It's kind of surprising how flat the curve is. Even the "worst" major choices still have plenty of people that make it to the 1%.

Of course, nowhere from this data can we conclude that your choice of major has an effect on your future financial success. Just that there's a correlation.

libraryatnight• 15 years ago

Glad to see some English majors made it :). Now how do I get there?

wahnfrieden• 15 years ago

Some of them made it by inheriting their money from their parents. You could try doing that.

chrisbennet• 15 years ago

I wonder how many of those 1% actually work in the field that they majored in? For example, how many of the zoology "1 percenters" are actually working in the zoology field?

tlb• 15 years ago

And some work in no field, having inherited money.

The interesting statistics would be, what skill sets did people apply to make large amounts of money?

FelixP• 15 years ago

One thing that might be skewing the results- this chart is based on regularly-taxed income, which would exclude gains made from things like stock options and grants. I would hypothesize that a good chunk of CS and Engineering majors have done very well for themselves, but not from earning salary alone.

However, age is probably the single biggest factor here. Older people tend to be much wealthier and earn far more, and some "tech" degrees like CS weren't even offered (or offered widely) until relatively recently. I would also posit that the rise of very wealthy engineers is a relatively recent phenomenon, compounding the age issue.

What the Top 1% of Earners Majored In

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