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PSA: Don’t Let Your Children Be Art Majors at Murray State — Troy Senik
Over the past few years, as anxiety about the value proposition of college has spread, there have been increasing calls for transparency in higher education, such as the 2012 proposal by Senators Marco Rubio and Ron Wyden to make data about employment and earnings for graduates available to the public.
While that proposal is still floating around Congress, the folks at the Atlantic have done some of the spadework, releasing data earlier today on the most and least lucrative colleges and majors. Here’s what they found.
10 Schools Where Graduates Had the Highest Income (Over a Course of 20 Years)
- Harvey Mudd (CA)
- MIT
- Caltech
- Stanford
- Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)
- Babson (MA)
- Princeton
- NYU-Poly
- Dartmouth
- Harvard
10 Schools With Highest Return on Investment
- Virginia
- Georgia Tech
- Harvard
- William & Mary
- Washington
- Texas — Dallas
- New Mexico Tech
- Stanford
- Cooper Union
- Michigan
10 Most Lucrative Undergraduate Majors
- Stanford — Computer Science
- Columbia — Computer Science
- UC-Berkeley — Computer Science
- Harvey Mudd — Computer Science
- MIT — Computer Science
- Harvard — Computer Science
- Virginia — Computer Science
- Stanford — Economics
- Washington — Computer Science
- Carnegie Mellon — Computer Science
Schools With Worst Net Return (#1 ranking is worst)
- Shaw (NC)
- Fayetteville State (NC)
- Savannah State (GA)
- Bluefield (VA)
- North Carolina — Asheville
- Montevalla (AL)
- Adams State (CO)
- Morehead State (KY)
- Maryland Institute College of Art
For the state schools there (only Shaw and Bluefield are private), the calculations are based on out-of-state tuition, although Fayetteville State and Savannah State actually make the list on the basis of in-state tuition too. How bad is life at the bottom? At Shaw, the net return was calculated at -$121,000 over the course of 20 years.
Majors with Lowest Net Return (#1 ranking is worst)
- Murray State — Arts
- Florida International — Humanities and English
- Eastern Michigan — Arts
- Virginia Commonwealth — Education
- Bowling Green State — Education
- Western Michigan — Education
- Cal State Northridge — Humanities and English
- Ohio State — Education
- Indiana — Education
- Pittsburg State — Arts
The bottom of the barrel here? That arts major from Murray State would have been financially outpaced by a typical high school graduate to the tune of $197,000 over the course of 20 years.
Now, there’s a truckload of caveats here, as the Atlantic notes. The income is self-reported; today’s hot major may not be tomorrow’s, etc. Also, of course, a couple of these probably have just as much to do with location as with the programs themselves. I can’t speak to the quality of the computer science program at the University of Washington, for instance, but I suspect that graduates’ earnings are helped out significantly by the proximity to companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Expedia. Ditto Stanford and Silicon Valley.
Obviously there are limits to what we can deduce from the two extremes of the market, but … doesn’t this read about right? If I had a child headed off to a four-year university for a STEM degree (which would lead me to believe I wasn’t the biological father), I wouldn’t have a moment’s misgiving. For them, college really is an investment.
But liberal arts at a middle-of-the pack state school? Or even a lot of elite universities? Unless you have credential-specific aspirations, I’d probably rather buy you the great books. It’ll be a lot better than the pabulum you’ll likely get in the classroom and it also won’t put you four years behind in the job market.
Of course, I’m writing this as someone who’s closest approximation of a child is a French Bulldog. And — as the IRS has repeatedly and brusquely told me — that’s not the same thing as an actual dependent.
I’m thus curious to hear from those of you who have kids who are either in college or will be soon. How do you think about the value propositions of various schools and majors?
Published in General
Other issues:
1. Not everyone is cut out for STEM.
2. STEM departments actively weed out marginal undergraduates with upfront flunk-out courses. It reduces student load, and you want that if you’re faculty because students siphon away research time.
3. Some people love liberal arts even if it means they won’t make a lot of money.
4. Education departments normally feature the lowest quality students.
5. Measuring majors by projected or real income is cynical and stupid and only reflects that sad economic realities affecting college tuition. The problems are that a) students are unaware of how to navigate higher education, b) university administrations have ballooned and are the major driver behind increased tuition, c) student lifestyle standards have reached insane levels, requiring universities to spend money on amenities (and an extended arms race to improve them) that has led to even higher tuition.
The real moral of the story is consider college along side skilled labor training or not to fret over going to a 2nd tier school with a scholarship instead of a 1st tier school with 6 figure debts.
Arts degrees have never been a slam-dunk investment. I studied a (relatively!) lucrative art (filmmaking, as opposed to, say, basketweaving) at NYU, a “name” school for that sort of work. You can make a career out of it if you’re motivated and realistic. Obviously, you can make more dough as a surgeon or a Wall Street quantitative analyst. But if you’re truly determined to be the most serious scholar of medieval art that the modern world has ever seen, you’re willing to make the sacrifices, and if you have the ability, not just think you have the ability, you should go for it. If not, fine; it’s no sin to be unwilling to do what it takes.
My gripe here is for conservative parents who would never, ever let their kid go to film school, but are in here whining and crying over the alleged “cesspool” of popular culture that is supposedly forced on us. Who do they think is going to change it? Somebody else, not a conservative, let their kid take the lead in the arts and that’s how we ended up here.
I got a STEM degree from University of Utah in 1979 in Electrical Engineering, area of specialization in analog control systems. Actually didn’t use that much, but spent first 17 years or so of career doing electrical engineering on combined digital/analog embedded systems with heavy software content, then last 20+ years doing systems engineering. What I learned that was most valuable from school was how to put boundaries around a problem, then understanding what I knew about the problem, break it into smaller pieces, identify what I needed to learn/discover, plan how to do that, then synthesize the final solution from the available or to be developed pieces. That process was extremely valuable, and applies to both technical and non-technical systems, and can be the basis for success in any career. Specific stuff, like designing circuits with some specific uProcessor, or some specific computer language is less valuable, because that changes with time. It was how to approach and solve any problem posed that was valuable from college. It paid off well.
It is interesting to see that the school I am earning a Master’s from in Systems Engineering and System architecting, is so highly rated. I have enjoyed the courses and opportunities at Stevens quite a lot, and recommend the school.
When I went to the U of U in the late 70s, I paid for all my living expenses and school, with no outside help other than the GI bill, and had a part time job with the U of U Engineering Research Laboratory. Graduated with no money, but no debts either. It is a lot harder now, because since the Federal Government has started passing out so much money, rent seeking has made the cost of school rise much faster than salaries or inflation.
Today, STEM degrees work, one of my daughters is a successful chemist. Also, business degrees work, my other daughter is a more or less successful Accountant. Liberal arts, maybe not so well.
I grew up in New Mexico. New Mexico Tech is a bargain (#7 on the best return on investment list). Tell your kids to check it out.
Art has always been something of a lottery ticket degree.
I don’t know all the schools on this list, but I would like to speak up briefly for Morehead and Murray. They are state regional comprehensive open enrollment institutions located in the poorest parts of the state (tapped out coal mining in both locations). Here in Kentucky, working at either of them is referred to as “missionary work.” Both schools are also major out-migration pumps, near as we can tell. People leave the coal fields (Murray) and coal mines (Morehead), go to those schools, and move to Paducah, Owensboro, Lexington, or other cities to start a new life.
We are comparing their outputs to “typical high school students.” In a class of 30, they might have 2 “typical high school students.” The rest are non-traditionals, retirees trying to retrain, and poor kids from the surrounding hollers. The best and brightest all go to UK and Louisville.
Of course, my institution competes against both, so I’m happy that we’re “better than them” but given that we also serve a poor region (The famed Harlan county is in our region), there but for the grace of God…
If my kid wanted to study “Arts” at EMU, I’d take her to a used record shop in Ann Arbor and ask if she wanted to spend the rest of her life making fun of people for buying the obvious -rather than the good, authentic- stuff for $11/hr.
Still, I think that there is a tendency to underestimate the utility of even unimpressive credentials amongst the credentialed. My perspective may be a bit skewed: my business is in a University town and I’ve lived in the next-door state capital for most of my life. I’ve seen tons of folks with mediocre credentials racing up the ladder in the last 20 years. Most of the non-hoop jumpers haven’t done so well.
Obviously, much of the difference in outcomes can be explained away by the willingness to jump. Yet going to college is seen as the socially appropriate thing to do for certain segments of our population. In such a context, any alternate route is inherently suspect and receives strict scrutiny. I think that this is plausibly justified by outcomes.
When we lament the fact that more middle class parents want their kids to be anthropology majors than barbers, we are missing the point. The point, btw, is that selling the “University is often a ripoff” bit requires convincing a skeptical audience. We haven’t come close to closing that deal.
People buy the University product. They buy it in droves.
Self-selection is an issue in STEM to the extent that it tends to attract the most academically gifted students. I say it’s an issue, but what I mean is that making money tends to correlate well with being intelligent, mathematically minded and hard-working, and those qualities are precisely what you need in order to succeed in a STEM curriculum.
There’s no helping the fact that people who are already demonstrably bad at math (they aren’t in STEM… they’re in humanities, arts or education, where the worst performing college students already are) then hopelessly shackle themselves with practically infinite debt in order to obtain a degree which will never pay for itself.
For me, the core of the question is debt. Figure out how to manage the debt burden of college and you can make most majors work. I realize this is focused on undergrad, but I think grad school decisions are quite similar. As I tell aspiring students, don’t become a clinical psychologist at a school that won’t pay for you attend, you’ll never make back your salary.
That is the only thing that I remember from the entire class.
I wish I got a STEM degree.
I probably would have if not for the terrible options I had in high school regarding calculus teachers. Instead I went to art school and then when that didn’t work got a masters in education. Which at least provided me with a job.
Going to Syracuse’s schools for visual arts, the majority of my classmates are still out of work and this is nearing ten years post graduation.
After a year being unemployed I became what my parents suggested and got a job as a 5th grade teacher. Which in NYC with a combination of outside teaching programs, tutoring, and a larger salary to start with has provided me with a few years of six figure plus salary.
However, because of my poor degree choices I’m struggling in a profession where the average IQ of a colleague borders on the 80 mark. It’s quite frustrating.
If the economy does what many of us think it will do, the debt will inflate away. Just make sure it is fixed-rate.
I laughed when I saw the title. My sister-in-law has a Murray State art degree, and currently works as an administrative assistant (PC speak for secretary in KY government) at another state university. Of course she was bright enough to not only snag a STEM degree fellow student as her husband, he has a trust fund too. So her work is one of choice more so than necessity.
&blockquote>Majestyk: Self-selection is an issue in STEM to the extent that it tends to attract the most academically gifted students. I say it’s an issue, but what I mean is that making money tends to correlate well with being intelligent, mathematically minded and hard-working, and those qualities are precisely what you need in order to succeed in a STEM curriculum.
The hierarchy here implied is a real thing in non-Western institutions. The better student; the more STEM their admission allows. Western schools actually tended to downplay the importance of STEM degrees in favor of contemplative knowledge, i.e. Classics, Philosophy, History, etc. The rationale was that STEM was merely for “training” that could be done largely outside of the institution, while contemplative knowledge requires learning languages, silent prayer or meditation, intensive mentoring, etc.
Since the development of the German model of the research university, STEM has become important for producing wealthy donors, lucrative patents, and heaps of grant money. Worse, it’s changed the understanding of the university as a place of contemplation to a place of (loosely useful) workforce training, vetting, and credentialing. It’s not. Never will be. Not at heart.
I have two in college and one going to college in the fall. One is getting her degree in education and wants to be an elementary school teacher. She’s kind of a hippie/indie type with no interest in making money, plus she’s on a full scholarship to a private college so at least we won’t be in debt.
The other is getting his degree in biochemistry/cell biology at NC State. I worry about him. Will there be research jobs in the private industry when he finally gets his PhD?
My other daughter is going toUNC Chapel Hill in the fall; she’s getting her degree in business and political science. She wants to be a political lobbyist. You heard that right. I don’t know what it says about a 17-year-old girl who wants to be a lobbyist in Washington, but that’s her desire. If she’s a good one, I have no doubt we’ll have a good return on our investment. I just hope she doesn’t lose her soul in the process.
We pay for undergrad and they are on their own after that.
I’ve got an economist with a PhD who went into debt for a Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard before the PhD. That was probably a mistake because the debt is killing him and his wife. He’s a professor thinking of changing to something more lucrative to pay that debt.
I’ve got a philosopher with a PhD from Cornell. Not great job prospects–but doing well with writing, which doesn’t pay much. Good work for a Mom though.
I’ve got a humanities undergrad with a Master’s in Public Policy from Michigan, currently doing a 1 year fellowship and looking for a permanent job. Praying that works out.
I’ve got a Social Worker currently finishing a Master’s. He won’t be well-paid but will always have work (the upside of a dysfunctional society I guess.)
My youngest has a year to go on a Biochem major. Praying he is able to find work. No guarantees even for STEM grads these days. He’d make a good patent lawyer but law school is a bad bet right now.
Yep. Microsoft and others have been pushing for H1B visas for years claiming shortages of qualified workers.
Not sure that’s true though.
Sites with a lot of tech readers/commenters such as reddit and slashdot seem to be of mixed opinion about H1B visas (mostly negative, I think).
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/21/Atlantic-No-Empirical-Evidence-to-Support-Claims-of-Shortage-of-American-High-Tech-Workers
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/
You and I are in the same boat on this one, Merina. I’m praying for mine too.
I note that Communications Studies didn’t appear on any of the bottom-of-the-pack lists.
I’m not the worst! I’m not the worst!
D.C. McAllister:My other daughter is going toUNC Chapel Hill in the fall; she’s getting her degree in business and political science. She wants to be a political lobbyist. You heard that right. I don’t know what it says about a 17-year-old girl who wants to be a lobbyist in Washington, but that’s her desire. If she’s a good one, I have no doubt we’ll have a good return on our investment. I just hope she doesn’t lose her soul in the process…
You shouldn’t let her see this video (from the Crony Chronicles) about her choice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aO9tA5DWJM
&br />Vectorman: D.C. McAllister:My other daughter is going toUNC Chapel Hill in the fall; she’s getting her degree in business and political science. She wants to be a political lobbyist. You heard that right. I don’t know what it says about a 17-year-old girl who wants to be a lobbyist in Washington, but that’s her desire. If she’s a good one, I have no doubt we’ll have a good return on our investment. I just hope she doesn’t lose her soul in the process… You shouldn’t let her see this video (from the Crony Chronicles) about her choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aO9tA5DWJM
That is creepy. Thankfully, she doesn’t want to lobby for the public or for a nonprofit but for a corporation. Still, private-sector lobbying is getting into entanglements with the government. We’ll see how it turns out for her.
This is really the heart of the matter. I neither intended to suggest that everyone should do STEM or that there’s anything wrong with the liberal arts (my undergraduate degree is in political science and philosophy, and my master’s degree is in public policy). What I did mean to suggest, however, is that there’s not nearly enough of the cost-benefit analysis we’d impose on other endeavors applied to getting a college education, especially for students who have no strong priors as to how they’ll use their educations.
I agree with all the points in your comment (and hope the OP didn’t suggest otherwise), but this is especially important. Indeed, one of the reasons I was never wild about the Rubio-Wyden proposal was that it encourages a reductive way of thinking about college. Who cares if you don’t make much with your major if the satisfaction of being in the right job means more to you than the income? The problem is with those who never run the numbers in the first place, then are shocked to find that an English degree isn’t much help when they go looking for a job outside of the discipline.
Same lesson, Purdue University 2003. I’ve heard the same from my father, an EE who went to WV Tech about the same time as you were in school.
The lucrative MRS degree. The degree that feminists dare not speak its name.
The advice my buddy followed was thus: No matter what you really want to do, study business, because at the end of the day you’ll have to be a business-person to make a living. Then fill up all your electives with what you actually want to do.
Want to be a filmmaker? Take business, and fill up all your electives with film courses.
Want to be a writer? Take business, and fill up all your electives with English courses.
Want to be an artist? Take business, and fill up all your electives with art courses.
My buddy got his M.B.A. from Wharton, and he also does improv comedy.
I also know working filmmakers who got law degrees after finishing their communications studies B.A.
Say, do these rankings include return-on-investment stats for community colleges and/or trade schools?
What about private arts trade schools, like the Vancouver Film School, that focus on technical skills?
My brother actually earned a degree in engineering and chose to be a teacher instead. He always insists that when you calculate the hours put in teaching is a better deal.
And in reality we need more conservatives in teaching.
As a cash in cash out basis, my MS in education was a great deal. I’ve been banking near or beyond 6 figures with summers off for years. I also was able to pay off my loans in a timely fashion.
However, the art degree from syracuse was completely worthless.
Study whatever you want — but don’t go into debt for something you cannot pay back.
Here is my alternative: Success by Degrees.
Seawriter
Let’s see how that works with professions:
Want to be an engineer? Take business, and fill up all your electives with engineering courses.
Ah, nope.
Want to be a doctor? Take business, and fill up all your electives with science courses.
Don’t think so.
The advice works for trades. Film-making, art, writing, even teaching are all trades. In all of them you can pick up the basics with three to six months training (the military has a six month course to train instructors) and do a workmanlike job given a reasonable high school education. Doesn’t mean you will be great — just competent.
But engineering and medicine do require years of training and book-learning to master the basics. STEM pays well because the skills required are hard to master and take time and the demand is high. The degree matters less than the mastery, though.
Seawriter
I have a junior in high school and we are on the “college tour”, I have another college-bound child several years behind her. Several thoughts:
It seems that we are in a time of change. The bubble is bursting on the American education industry. It’s going to sort itself out over the next decade or so. Until then be careful you’re not getting a sheepskin from the last dinosaur.
Good luck.