College students who graduate with degrees in undergraduate college majors like pharmaceutical science and computer, chemical and industrial engineering tend to go on to earn high incomes over the course of their careers. The problem is African Americans tend to be under-represented in those majors – less than any other group – and what you major in while at college, it turns out, is more important than ever when it comes to earning more money over the course of a career.
This according to a report released earlier this year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW). African Americans who graduate with degrees in industrial and manufacturing engineering, for example, go on to earn about $76,000 in median annual wages over the course of a career. But, African Americans – who represent 12% of the U.S. population – only represent 5% of graduates in that major. Those graduating with degrees in Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration go on to earn $84,000 in annual median income, yet African Americans only represent 6% of those grads overall, according to the CEW’s study. (See below for our gallery on the 10 Highest-Earnings Majors for African Americans.)
Also, African-Americans were also found to represent only 7% science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, or STEM.
So where are all the African-American students if they’re not in the top-earning majors? On the other end of the spectrum, it turns out. CEW’s study showed that they tend to be over-represented in college major programs that, on average, lead to lower wages. For example, they represent 21% of Health and Medical Administration Services majors, which brings in a median annual wage of $46,000. African-Americans represent 21% of Human Services and Community Organization, and 19% of Social Work majors, which each lead to median salaries of $41,000 or less.
Other groups – whites, Asians, Hispanics – also experienced higher or lower career wages after graduating with certain degrees. But African-Americans are underrepresented in the top-earning fields of study, over-represented on the low end and tend to earn the least amount of money over the course of a career as a result (Asians tend to earn the most of all groups), says CEW Director Anthony Carnevale, one of the authors of the report.
“African American women especially are highly concentrated in low earning majors, oftentimes to do with community service—a lot of psychology, a lot education, a lot of humanities,” says Carnevale. “The education majors get jobs but at low wages.” African-American men, he added, are distributed a bit more broadly among majors, but still experience the same trend. There is, Carnevale stresses, nothing wrong with choosing one major over another, but that decision can have a profound impact on earning power over the course of a career. “They’re going to choose majors based on their interests and values but they should at least know what the economic consequences are and there is no system in place to (inform them) and that’s especially true for lower income populations, where there’s a very high concentration of African Americans.”
Carnevale says that since the 1980s the overall value of a college degree – in terms of its impact on career earnings – has doubled relative to a high school degree. “What is even more striking and a stronger shift has been the difference in value among fields of study—it’s grown even more, from an economic point of view.”
Carnevale says he hopes the study enlightens those about what kind of monetary return they can expect from the degrees they pursue, noting that nowadays there are about 1,100 distinct occupations to choose from (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and 2,500 college majors at schools in the U.S. “I think it points out the need for more transparency in helping students and administrators and other people as well, figure out the economic value of fields of study or college majors.”
