The Lowest Paying College Majors In America
The Federal Reserve of New York conducted a study titled Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates by Major. It shows the unemployment rate, the median wage in early career, the median wage in mid-career, and the unemployment rate for each…
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The Federal Reserve of New York conducted a study titled Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates by Major. It shows the unemployment rate, the median wage in early career, the median wage in mid-career, and the unemployment rate for each major. “Early Career” is defined as five years after graduation.
Three majors paid only $38,000 at the early career point: liberal arts, performing arts, and theology. CNBC pointed out, “For context, that’s slightly less than the U.S. personal income median of $40,480 as of 2022, per the latest data available from the U.S. Census.” These are the world-paying jobs for women.
Some early-career salaries were about double the three at the bottom. Computer engineering paid $80,000, and chemical engineering paid $79,000.
Oddly, unemployment among the lowest-paying majors was not necessarily high, particularly in one case. Among theology majors, it was 3.2%. However, among liberal arts majors, it was 7.9%, and among performing arts majors, it was 5.5%.
A great deal has been written about the value of a college education. Often, the analysis comes down to majors. The average student takes out $30,000 in loans to get a bachelor’s degree. Among majors that pay poorly, it could take years to pay them off.
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
