Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce released a study last week that shows that students who major in health, STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — and business fields end up with higher average annual wages at the entry level and over the course of a person’s career. The lowest-paying majors were in the arts, liberal arts and humanities. The study used United States Census data to examine the wages for 137 college majors to identify the most economically beneficial undergraduate areas of study.
The report indicated that major is a main determining factor for income level. The study revealed that 80 percent of college students study a major linked to careers, while 20 percent major in the humanities and liberal arts. Senior analyst for the Center on Education and the Workforce Andrew Hanson, who co-led the study, wrote that the study aimed to investigate the variation of future earnings between majors. One of the purposes of the study, he emphasized, was to assist students and advisors in their academic decision-making and navigating their school curricula.
According to the report, the top-paying college majors earn $3.4 million more than the lowest-paying majors over a lifetime.
“People have to internally decide what their currency for success is,” theater professor Dan Kotlowitz said in response to the study. Their currency could either be earning large sums of money or enjoying the other satisfactions of life, he said. As an artist, he said that he believes that although economic value is important, students should not prioritize it over other values.
Kotlowitz said that he thought the study was limited to only the economic element of life and did not consider other benefits of a liberal arts education.
Kotlowitz said that studying theater has benefited him because it explores the human condition and teaches critical thinking and creativity. He said that the best professionals are the ones who possess a liberal arts background because they tend to be more creative and collaborative.
Kotlowitz added that college is an once-in-a-lifetime experience that students should use to broaden their impact and world scope.
Throughout the study, STEM fields are featured as the most economically beneficial majors. Hanson wrote that STEM majors are valuable because of the country’s intensive labor market and information-based economy, so employers appreciate the analytical and technical skills that STEM majors have, he said.
Computer science department chair Thomas Cormen echoed this sentiment, saying that today’s technology boom and information economy plays a role in the economic value of STEM majors.
Although Cormen believes economic values are an important consideration, he said that a broad education, regardless of major, is essential.
“This is one of the nice things about Dartmouth,” he said. “No matter what you major in you have the capabilities of getting a broad education.”
Even in computer science, Cormen said that liberal arts skills are needed to communicate ideas and interact with people.
He added that non-STEM majors also need to master quantitative and technical skills as they are essential in different ways of thinking analogically, technically and critically.
Nicole Boyd ’15, an economics major, said that STEM and business majors have high payouts because they teach skills important in product-oriented fields in the private sector.
“You can’t measure value based solely on pay,” she said. “Monetary and humanistic value are not mutually exclusive.”
She also stressed that the social sciences and liberal arts have their intrinsic social and personal values despite their leading to lower pay.
While Georgetown’s study can be seen as discouraging for liberal arts, social sciences and humanities majors, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce and a co-leader of the study Anthony Carnevale reminded the readers of the study that “a college major isn’t destiny,” citing the fact that top 25 percent of humanities and liberal arts majors earn more than the bottom 25 percent of engineering majors.
