College is expensive, but it can really pay off! The college you go to, and your major, will shape your future salary and job opportunities.
While liberal arts majors tend to earn less than their more major-specialized peers, it is not a bad choice for some students. Students graduating with a liberal arts degree can still earn a decent living and studies show they are actually often happier from a career perspective. See the data.
There’s no question that attending a selective school is a worthy investment for some students, but for others, which school they attend may not make a significant difference in their future earnings. Learn why.
Each outlet ultimately has its own unique approach for measuring a school’s value, and students and parents should always be aware of the specific methodology that was used to create each list. We took a closer look!
In a recent survey, 56 percent of students indicated that, if they could go back and start the college admissions process over, they’d choose a different college. Even more students are worried about career preparedness. Here’s why college career services may be as important to students as financial aid programs.
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In general, majoring in STEM fields leads to higher-paying jobs and to lower rates of unemployment than majoring in the liberal arts. However, framing the conversation in terms of STEM versus the liberal arts can be misleading. Plenty of pre-professional majors, such as counseling psychology, lead to lower earnings than the liberal arts. Some STEM majors lead to high earnings only after the completion of graduate school. Plus, your major does not determine everything. Some majors have very high variation in outcomes - and in some cases, the college you go to matters more than the major you choose.
On average, a college degree in the US pays off because it leads to higher salaries that offset the cost. However, factors such as cost, the length of time in school, and your major all affect the calculation of whether college will be worth it for you.
According to a recent study the lowest-earning majors were in the fields of arts, education, consumer services, psychology, and social work.
College rankings can be helpful, but are easily able to be manipulated by the colleges themselves to demonstrate increased favorability. Focus on measures of output (e.g., graduation rates, postgraduate salary, ability to repay student debt) or school resources (e.g., the quality of faculty, the faculty-to-student ratio), which tend to be better indicators of a school’s value than something like selectivity or test scores. Some ranking systems are largely based on a school’s reputation. For U.S. News, undergraduate academic reputation comprises 22.5 percent of a school’s total score - which is a highly subjective and roundabout way of measuring a school’s value.
