Your college major can make a big impact on how much money you make throughout your career. Those are the findings of a comprehensive new study by the nonprofit Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. People who graduate with degrees in subjects like petroleum engineering and pharmaceutical sciences earn $3.4 million more in their lifetimes than those who get degrees in low-paying fields like early childhood education, studio art and social work.
Researchers at the Center, which is affiliated with the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, took four years worth of data, from 2009-2013, compiled by the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and analyzed lifetime median wages of college-educated workers between the ages of 25 and 59. They also looked at earnings of high school graduates during that period. The findings may not be surprising but they are striking.
“We’ve known for awhile that all degrees are not created equal, that your major has a large effect on your ability to get a job and work your way up a career ladder,” said Anthony Carnevale, the center’s director and the report’s lead author, in a statement. But he added that college majors don’t cement your destiny. Proof: the top 25% of humanities and liberal arts majors earn more than the bottom 25% of engineering majors. According to one of the center’s findings, though education is one of the lowest-paying majors, the top 25% of education majors earn $59,000 or more annually. At the same time, the bottom 25% of those who major in engineering, which is consistently the top-earning field, make $59,000 or less.
Another intriguing set of findings: For some majors, graduate degrees yield a much greater payday. People who get degrees in physical sciences like chemistry, biology or geology make a median of $32,000 more in annual wages after they’ve earned graduate degrees. Social science majors, like anthropologists, political scientists, linguists or criminologists earn a median of $27,000 more once they have graduate degrees under their belts. Business majors earn $22,000 more, psychology and social work majors earn $16,000 more and education majors earn $15,000 more.
See our slideshow above for the 10 highest- and 10 lowest-paying majors. Caveat: Some of the majors overlap. Four of the lowest-paid majors are closely related—early childhood education, a major called “teacher education: multiple levels,” elementary education and a major called “family and consumer services,” which can lead to such disparate fields as a career in early childhood education, nutrition, or interior or textile design. The message though is that these education-related majors don’t pay well. At the other end of the spectrum, all but one of the top-earning majors are in engineering.
