Daniel Herron
Multimedia Editor
College is a gamble. We bet our GPA that we can pass our classes. We bet our tuition that we can make our degree earn. We bet our time and our money and our youth that higher education will pay off, in the end.
But like any gamble, it pays to do the research, look at the numbers, and play the odds. A quick Google search will tell you what you already know: the more math in your degree, the better it will pay.
Engineering, if you can hack it, pays more than anything else; according to the U.S. census, median annual earnings for populations 25 and older are around $93,000 if you have a bachelor’s in an engineering field, compared to $50,000 for visual and performing arts or education.
But median salary isn’t the only thing to consider. Business majors are popular; 12,000 of the individuals included in the above study were business majors, which represents more than 20 percent of the total. But popular doesn’t always mean good.
Plenty of business majors end up working fast food, and the median income for that degree is skewed by the rockstars of the business world who accumulate millions through working the system.
Underemployment is a real problem, a danger to everyone, especially in this economy. Well, almost everyone. At least one study showed zero percent unemployment for astrophysicists.
None of this is helping, right?
So, here’s the meat: the key to happiness isn’t money.
Money helps: it gives you time to seek what you love, do what you want, and be who you want. But it is far from everything.
The one thing that the business degree stats should tell us is this: stand out. Be unique. Be scarce. Be rare. Find a niche where the supply is short and the demand is long. But, above all else, find a major that you enjoy. Do something with your life that you love.
Think about it: which is a better life, one where you do what you love and live hand to mouth, or one where you make all the money in the world and hate every minute of it. And remember, if all else fails, there’s always Vegas.
Editor’s note: For more information on careers and salaries, visit the U.S. Census Bureau web site at http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11-04.pdf.