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And The Highest Paid College Majors Are...
Presented with little comment but perhaps it is time to rethink that $100,000 loan and the extended MBA program...
- Petroleum Engineering: $93,500
- Computer Engineering: $71,700
- Chemical Engineering: $67,600
- Computer Science: $64,800
- Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering: $64,400
- Mechanical Engineering: $64,000
- Electrical/Electronics and Communications Engineering: $63,400
- Management Information Systems/Business: $63,100
- Engineering Technology: $62,200
- Finance: $57,400
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Escorts?
Hardest work, dangerous to boot, pays best in this petroleum driven world. Not really a aurprise it's number 1.
Butt, finance at the butt end? Shocking.
Seems there is a glut of thieves in training.
ori
But what kind of bonus does a petro-engineer get?
Bupkis!
Exactly. The money in finance isn't in the salary, it's in the bonuses and graft. The salary is just there to provide a taxable income to make it look legit.
I have to say that the chem eng double major worked out quite well for me...
The column on the far left produces what all the other columns destroy ...
No column for 'tycoon' ...
I didn't see park and rec in that chart..., what gives?
Chemical Engineers, pollute rivers and kill fish. Hell ya bitches!!!!!
Same here with a EE/CS double major. The finance bitches might make more, but I get to spend time with my family. Priorities.
+1 for the Badger 4-peat...Fuck Bret Bielema in the goat ass
Brent who? :)
Yep.
The richest person I know is a $60k per year bus driver, who will have a gov pension after 30 years of service. Anyone else would have to have $1-2 million savings in the bank to duplicate that. No way any of these college degrees earn that much.
Hooold on! Start at 25, work until 55, live until 85. 30 years retirement. $60,000/$1,000,000=6%. So, if you can manage 6% return, you never use the capital. If you manage 3% return, you'll still never run out of principle. I think you exagerate how much you need to retire. I figure $400,000 for me, with a paid-for house. Maybe less...
who the hell is getting 6% ? you do know once the nest egg gets trashed, there is not a real good way of averging back right? That is why everyone is in safe crap 1% mud
It is not an exageration because the $60k pension is there regardless of how much money that guy saves for retirement. The private sector guy has to save up the $1M prior to drawing his $60k income from it. Big difference!
This must be the guy with the highest and farthest-out promise from the least solvent entity.
This "rich" guy will never actually be able to afford to live like one. The way things are going, he'll actually be pretty poor.
You can count on another 30% for an average year in a large company.
Some go to 60% depending on the mix of cash and stock, and in a very good yearfor the company.
Are you say I wasted my money on my Russian History degree?
Should have gone for Fem Lit.
However, if you can read Russian, you will be able to converse with all of the young ladies from Russia--the ones that you get unsolicited emails from.
Hey, Natalia may have cost me a couple of G's but at least I still have her framed photo.
My degree in Lesbian Basket-Weaving was worth every bit of the $100,000 debt.
Funny, I don't see the Communications Arts, English majors, crimminal justice lackeys, or womyn's studies losers anywhere on that chart.
Oooop, my bad. They're covered under "escorts".
Some of those degrees you mention are stepping stones to graduate programs.
In Escortology, right?
(Knee pads not included)
They left out the Mrs degree
They also forgot Chicano Studies.
jealous, eh.
If you can lick'em, join'em!
I saw an Ad once that said,
Are you a beautiful single female who needs help paying for your college tuition?
Then you need a "college tuition sugar daddy".
You know -- I actually applied for that gig.
The old man took one look at me and said "Can't you read?"
I said: "Well -- I figure, you know, I got two out of three of the qualifications."
He was not amused.
My degree in Lesbian Basket-Weaving was worth every bit of the $100,000 debt.
Not mine. Every Lesbian basket I weave ends up looking like an angry, malformed taco.
or a angry boy like Rachel Maddow
I'd love to see a basket made of Lesbians. Got any pics?
My 24 year old daughter is a liberal arts grad making over 70K two years out. There are many companies looking for graduates with top notch critical thinking, writing, and foreign language skills. If you can make it through their grueling testing process you can make some decent money.
Isn't she 25?
Ummm, no. I think I know how old my daughter is. She graduated at 22, in May of 2011. That's pretty normal---4 years in college. My point is that there are a good number of recent grads who are making decent money in spite of not having a degree in engineering. I'm sorry if that hurts the feelings of the tech/engineering types out there. It is indeed a tough economy, but sharp grads with a good work history can find jobs if they are flexible, even those with liberal arts degrees. She has been working part-time since she turned 16 and her employer said that makes a difference to them. Too many college grads have never worked, even part-time, and hiring them is a huge gamble.
Hard work does payoff. Good to hear! Congrats.
I agree with many of the other points you are making, as well.
Sharp grads shouldn't have to be "flexible", though. Problem is, HR is completely clueless (along with many of those in managerial positions). Simply put, they do not know when they are looking at the gift horse in the mouth!
Hiring your daughter to work in your company doesnt count.
I don't have a company. I don't even work anymore. Ironically, she works for a financial services company, which in no way relates to her majors.
I wouldn't really call being a petro engineer dangerous. Also, not real hard work, just super long hours and lots of paperwork.
The bonuses paid last year were the best I have ever seen for drillers, rig managers, mud men etc. The drillers on the project I was on in northern Canada (coring) were getting 15K bonus on top of real good wages over the winter drilling program (2.5 months). The rig crews were making a years income over the program as they basically worked just about the whole time.
For the first time that I have seen, the tool push was being paid more than my job as the engineer. There is a real shortage of qualified rig workers when the winter drilling season starts. The pay is great but you have to be prepared to be outside on a rig in -35 degree weather some days and that is just not much fun. Also, you are gone from home for an extended period and that doesn't always bode well for marriages/family life.
Yep. The pay is good up here. Too bad income taxes are so insane though.
My kid is new engineer, but those wages don't mean shit.
I live in D town , motor city and during the outsourcing years, many a non engineer with half brain were coining in, making parts,
Those industiral areas, many many, are now ghost towns. I serviced many in my first careers. These people 20 years ago created some real wealth, an engineer wage is just good wage. BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE. Sorry, but the neighborhoood ain't lyin. It be dyin, and no ponzi scheme money printing bullshit is gong to save it.
Problem with petro industry is it's boom-bust + the obvious drawbacks to being in that industry. Surprised computer engineering is so high on the list, I know a lot of senior computer engineers getting laid off. Sure, they bounce back but my sense was there's a lot of downward pressure on wages from offshoring.
Engineers took seven of the top ten spots in NACE’s April survey, with petroleum engineers–a category added this year–earning the most, with average starting salaries of $93,500.
This list is also probably skewed because the more specialized engineering fields I guess aren't registering but generally seem to pay better than any of these in my experience.
Edit- didn't realize post grad (saw MBA at the top) was excluded from this, makes A LOT more sense now
Depends on what you do. If you are a J2EE monkey, you better be a Hindu as they will only typically hire Hindu.
If you are doing something a bit more cutting edge you can get by. By and large real Americans are in leadership positions and the coding is done offshore. Business requirements, testing, project management...etc all American typically.
Its all a cost play. If we can get the skills overseas we will. Does not matter if it kills the consumer here, or whatever. India coder average cost $25/hr. Onshore $85/hr (not saying the resource gets that, I am saying that is the cost to the company)
To summarize, computer sci is one of the few fields where skipping college may be better and start getting work experience. You can always find something (may not be the best) if you know tech.
The thing with CE is that kids fresh out of school tend to have relevant knowledge of current software and processes while someone with a 20 year career has 15+ years of antiquated knowledge that theyd like to be paid for.
Senior Computer Engineers laid off. Young grads mostly not even being hired despite being qualified for the positions. Its a real disaster for US citizen computer/electrical engineers, that's for sure. Some sit in the basement and code open source, but most of them just suffer an intellectual death after studying for such a difficult degree.
May not be true. I hear from friends in IT that they are paying top dollars for local IT talent and still they can't find enough :(
May not be true. I hear from friends in IT that they are paying top dollars for local IT talent and still they can't find enough :(
Petro will have a few bumps, but it's up from here on out, until it really busts. At that point, everything else busts too and it won't matter what you did for a living.
Whats missing is that they should do a lifetime summary earnings for engineers. In many of the faster evolving tech fields, you are obsolete or too expensive by years 15~20 into your career. Don't find yourself unemployed at 45+ or you are roadkill.
The corps favorite trick is putting old engineers to pasture and say they can't find any so we need to ship more indians in by the truckload.
Meanwhile over in tenure and .gov world, everyone has kicked back and just counting down the days to pension payoff.
Bullshit. Old, experienced, and laid-off engineers can and should get teaching positions at the universites. They are most needed there.
The "corps" also say that the young have no skills. They demand 5-10 years of experience for a freakin entry-level position, in an industry that hasn't hired many domestic grads for the past decade. That's why the resume queues of the Google, Facebooks, and Microsofts of the world are 1000 deep with resumes for each person they actually hire.
I worked for oil companies for two summers in college. Great pay, yes. But very dangerous. Seemed like every few weeks someone got burned or was badly injured.
ok, so where's the MD who knocks out $35k each morning for quad bypass or $10k each morning for breast augmentation? i think they should be represented hereeeeeeeeeeeeee
Dr's, Lawyers and Dentists are classified under "Post Graduate"
My mom's best friend's grandma's transsexual roommate makes $16,957 a week on the internet, and he/she didn't even finish high school.
That story has a Happy Ending. Actually, many Happy Endings.
How much of that do you think they keep?
http://www.physician-salary.org/
A lot regardless.. The real question is though, how will the Patient Protection and Affordable (stop laughing now) care act change everything? Also, what about a big economic collapse? I guess they would still be fine.
Define a lot... Depends on the specialty... some of the most respected/idealized surgeon jobs get paid peanuts compared to ear, nose, & throat guys... or even run of the mill dentists. Largely depends on your locale and the level of competition available. Some make a lot, others not so much. However, if you work for a medical corporation that you do not own, then rest assured it will take the lion's share of your labor. Physician salaries are flat, but medical profits are not... you do the math as to where the difference goes.
Obamacare will not change things, just make them different. As it stands, and will always stand in the land of moral hazard, the most successful people have but a single goal: milk the government tit for all it's worth. The only thing Obamacare will change is how everyone receives payments for services and how much they receive for which service... so, the only thing rational actors will do is to shift how they practice to keep recovering their desired share of the pie. You can already see a differentiation strategy by some clinics/professionals, desiring only to cater to those with money... or otherwise moonlighting for the country clubs (for the wife's spending money and what not). In general, expect less customized medical care and more throwing of medications at the wall until one sticks (and you thought it couldn't get any worse). At this point, many general practitioners are being whipped to death by their institutions to see X patients per day... given that is at the reasonable extent of human capacity (actually past it for any materially meaningful healthcare), then we'll need more medical practitioners to pick up the slack (due to the increase in the number of people who will be eligible to receive services). And, given that governmental reimbursements are not increasing, there will be scabs to replace real doctors... expect more practice of medicine by nurses, et al. The theme will be practice of medicine on a doctor's license and under his/her supervision... however, in practice, this will mean no oversight.
Tack in some draconian tort reform and we can declare ourselves one step closer to idiocracy.
Good post Machoman, I have a good friend who is a doctor. He works for a clinic and can barely pay his bills. He has to pay several secretaries and nurses for each patient fee. He has less spendable income than a lot of engineers that I know. Your post says it like it is.
Thanks for the info MachoMan. The only other question I have is what's going to happen relating to Health Insurance companies? Are they going to go bankrupt or become very rich from this?
Considering they actually don't add any benefit to healthcare, aside from more mouths to feed, I expect they go broke...
I suspect the same thing that happens to most all businesses in a cyclical downturn... when less and less clients are able to pay for their services, the overhead and capital infrastructure costs strangle the company to death. The ones who are best able to weather the storm are the ones who can whittle away these costs or never had them in the first place. However, even the most adaptive organizations eventually have to start hacking off limbs to stave away the cancer. (I think on a macro picture, we're not too far away from this for many institutions, across the spectrum... there's only so long you can fire people to pad the bottom line).
The only question remaining after that is whether the company can win the race to be systemically important enough to be saved through moral hazard, aka bailed out... hence the rush to be "too bigger to fail".
Insofar as your specific question, if the government is going to mandate and penalize (tax) health insurance, then I see no reason why the government wouldn't or shouldn't take over the industry. If health insurance is a right to all (which is what it has practically been mandated to be, although not a "natural" or "free" right), then there is no reason for private ownership of the industry... unless of course you just care to beam the profits to the principal actors of failed institutions (those that are directly dependent upon government largesse)... in which case you keep them lingering on in perpetuity. Instead, we appoint government cronies and the pinnacle of the peter principle into these positions to suck the public institution dry... six of one half dozen of another.
Seriously, my niece is heading off to UMich in the fall. Smart kid, great grades, clueless. Is thinking about med school after a degree in medical engineering. I don't know. If I was 18 today, I'd probably opt for something like ranching or farming. The system is so fucking rigged to take your last dime, I'm surprised most kids even buy into it.
Then again, I'll turn 60 in December, and I wasn't very smart about life at 18 (got high, drunk and laid al lot, though).
What bothers me is it's about 10-12 years of school, internship, etc. for any doctor to get out on their own, so figure 30 before you start paying off what $200,000 in student loans? And I'm an optimist. Could be $300,000 or more.
We're screwed.
At least they can find jobs. We're now into a full decade since the non-recovery in employment for US citizen tech workers that graduated after the 2000-2001 tech bust.
Agriculture is harder than white collar work. Some years, yields are below costs. You'd be nuts to do that. With the grad rates of medical schools versus where we need them to be, she'll make a killing being a general practitioner. If she specialiazes, she'll never have to worry about money for the rest of her life.
@nasdaq99
Actually, you do have a good point. That point is that this chart lists 'majors', as in undergraduate. Since an MBA (or an MD in your example) is post graduate, we can safely say that it wasn't considered when making this chart.
>so where's the MD who knocks out $35k each morning for quad bypass or $10k each morning for breast augmentation?
Not on this planet...
Well hot escorts keep those techie engineers humming while they work. At $200 / hr and 10 customers a week they can bring in $100k their first year.
And most of it tax free. Just keep up on handi wipes and antibiotics. Plus there are the three or four days a month where they cannot charge full rates.
Four days? Says who? There is a market for everything.
Different strokes and all that. ;-)
Better to be a dominatrix: $300+/hr and no sex. Plus if you're doing it in NY you get to smash the balls of the Wall Street douchebags who pay for "punishment".
Except most engineers aren't paid enough to use their services. Most engineers these days are lucky if they can even afford a 10-year-old used car and food on the table.
Coke dealers?
Well, from the list is looks like escorts in the Bakken Shale.
well engineers build the future...
Good sirs, I am appalled that locomotive engineers don't even make the list. They are the lifeblood of our transportation industry.
This is because you don't have to understand advanced mathematics to make the choo-choo go.
Usually you start out as a conductor, then work your way up to a locomotive engineer.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/locomotive-engineer-salary-SRCH_KO0,19...
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/railroad-conductor-salary-SRCH_KO0,18.htm
Don't badmouth trannies who happen to be McMolotov's mom's best friend's grandma's roommate who makes $16,957 a week on the internet, and he/she didn't even finish high school.
And the future is petroleum, but dont tell the greenies.
Well then there's not much of a future, because pretty soon the cost to bring dino-goo to market will exceed what we can pay for it.
No it won't. And you'll wait in line hours to pay top dollar for it, too.
Hay man, thoze greenies, Obama supporters, Obama himself, academics, and other lazy thinkers and government teet-suckers would strongly disagree with you there.. Windmill-powered bicycles and other green ideas are here to stay.. and you'll learn to like it, so deal with it!! [/arrogant liberal greenie]
Forward
Not so much. With all the government regulations, we just fill out paperwork... a checklist here, a sign in sheet there, an osha certifcation somewhere... oh, and lot's of filing. Gotta make sure the contractor filed his paperwork too, and had the appropriate DBE usage, and that they were certified DBE's, not some imaginary DBE owned by the imaginary wife. There's no engineering in the profession anymore, just government compliance audits.
In 1900, a good mechanical engineer made $3k a year, or 150 oz of gold.
A good mechanical engineer can still do that.
150 oz/yr in gold? That's $200-225k/yr at the depressed gold prices.
On what planet does an ME make that, unless he's mgmt timber?
I paid an ME doing optical packaging $325 an hour a few years back. I've been trying to hire one for years, and offering $120K doesn't get a call back.
[Jaw drops, eyes pop]... You need to contact me!
That's right. So if engineer quality or employment of engineers is scant, you can know your economy has no future.
For instance, just look at all the incompetent H-1B's that have muscled out US citizen engineers in the tech industry because they're cheaper and allow the CEO to collect a bigger bonus.
What about majors like Women's Studies or 19th Century French Literature?
they're there, but the chart doesn't scale that low
They get paid in SNAP cards and unemployment.
You have to have a job for a while to get unemployment. I think maybe all they get are those SNAP cards.
Are the women's studies grads the customers or the escorts?
You don't like lady froggies?
TSA Colonoscopists ?
Not sure watching a Troy McClure training video counts as a college degree
Bernanke has a degree in Anal Probing
where's "Communications" on that list?
Part of Electrical Engineering.
What kinda camera was she using for a selfie, where you can still see the laces on a baseball spinning damn near the speed of the Bernank's printer?
(I'm an audio guy.)
there's baseballs in that picture?
Looks like a glut of the parasitical Finance supply.
Radio-TV-Film Major!!
"So that'll be a Skinny Non-Fat Latte? Coming right up..."
A Petrolium Engineer would probably not steal your money either. Honest work.... how about that.
Art history FTW!
banksters?
edit: oh wait, there is no major in college for that - it's learned on the job
It's a family business, and one generation trains another. Money is just like incest, best kept in the family. No outsiders allowed.
It's a family business, and one generation trains another. Money is just like incest, best kept in the family. No outsiders allowed.
No. It's in the genes. I hear the on campus interviews are tough: 1) for how much would you sell your mother, 2) a 70 year old man is standing on a $100 dollar bill on a narrow subway platform with an oncoing train - what is the proper course of action,....you get the picture.
no wounder i droppped out of architecture school.
Excellent choice!
Silicon Valley executive?
Liberal Arts degrees...not even on the list....but they get jobs in Governments....good till dead or retired....other peoples money..
Most govt workers wind up getting masters degrees to increase their pay scale, so they don't show up here.
I don't know if most do, but many of them do if they want to get to higher places.
Energy, Bitchezz!
We got to have it. It's real, it's important, it's fought over.
Finance? Corporate welfare and political corruption. I was surprised that it sucked hind tit, actually.
I think the nature of the finance industry is just causing employers to react to market conditions faster than other industries. A lot of entry positions in other industries are just paying what they have offered over the last decade but finance entry level seems to get cut lower each time a job is posted. There are a lot more graduates than entry level positions right now so you have to be willing to take what you can get if it is a good title/company.
English major, minor in art history = starvation
HAHAHAHA, I have friend who has a mba in archeology and pshychology...
now... archyology doesn't really pay much because it's mostly done by students.
And psychology... is a good proffesion if you live in America where the fruitcakes live.
now he started a bar :)
his dad is so proud... they don't speak to each other anymore.
and I know a lot of people who carry the papers but can't seem to put it into good use that brings in money.
Yep... also a sound reason for why an apprenticeship program is very practical... you actually get to do what it is you're studying about, thereby giving you a vastly better indication as to whether you will enjoy doing this for the rest of your life. The reality is that most professions can be narrowly tailored to be great, but only after decades of work/experience/goodwill... and, frankly, that's not guaranteed. In the meantime, you'll be doing a bunch of shit you don't want, treating people you don't want to treat, seeing some fucking ridiculous shit, working with fucktards, and generally despising a material chunk of your day (at least it isn't all bad, right?).
Tack on the fact that most people do all of this to make other people rich and the wheels fall off...
Hey, having a bar is a good deal if you can beat the mafia out of the skim from the quarter machines. Not so good if you don't want to share.
A degree in psychology merely indicates that one needs formal instruction to understand why others act the way they do. Everyone else had it down before their teenage years.
another one :)
Political Sciences !
yeah... we need those...
There is no Science in politics. A made-up name to make Politics sound better. Political Art, Political Management, Lobbying, or Government Clerk Studies would be a lot more intellectually honest. Do need some basic math skills to calculate how many votes need to be bought or stolen, so even Political Math could be defended. But Political "Science"? A hoax by a group with an inferiority complex.
not bad to be a engineer....
and I just had to be a marketeer....
A marketeer is a hero when times are good. And when times go bad... everybody blames you. In todays days, it's more acceptable to be a pimp than a marketeer...
In 2007, I had a team of 19 people.
In 2009, I had 4...
Now, I'm down to 2 and because Q1 was a fail... that will be down to one...
and everybody expects the same as what we did with 20 people...
I also work with a lot of engineers... I don't run high with them. There's not a lot of good once. 1 in 50, maybe.
So engineering is also in a bubble. Only thing is... they can build bubblemachines :)
You only need marketers when your product is second or third quartile.
You don't need them when the stuff for sale is first quartile or fourth quartile.
I'm afraid there's this kind of cold war between engineers and marketeers.
Marketeers are the ones that come up with outrageous, totally impossible ideas which they expect can be implemented in a week 'cause "it sounds so easy" and try to convince the engineers to commit to said deadline with tons of bullshit (which will only work the first time they do it and never again).
Engineers are the ones that can't speak or understand the language of normal people, focus far more on "how to make it" than on the "what's it for" and measure everybody's worth by how well they get technology.
Few exist that can cross this chasm.
Engineers could benefit from exploring the right hemispheres of their brains.
Marketeers could benefit from exploring their left hemispheres.
Those who do bridge the gap have mastered both.
Personally, coming from an Engineering background, I started learning Acting. which was a big eye-opener in the areas of emotion, sensitivity and perceptiveness.
(Funnilly enough, your average actor is nowhere near as open as one might think and like most people goes around with tons of ignorance, preconceptions and prejudices about those who specialize in other domains)
That said, before one feels the need to try and explore the right hemisphere of one's brain, one needs to have some awareness about one's personal and professional quirks and value as a person those things that are beyond the domains of logic and intellect.
I don't know many people that can do it.
SD I'm with you on the engineers, I've worked with so many of them over the years and I can only remember 4 or 5 of them that had a fucking clue.
Yeah! Engineering bitchez! lol
Petroleum Engineers are getting jobs developing new Vaseline for the rest of us who will be taking it deep from TPTB.
just think... happy thoughts.... SNAP!!! Bend over please....
I believe that would actually be chemical engineers.
I HAVE A IDEA FOR A NEW PRODUCT!!!
Mint flavored Vasoline...
Crispy Vasoline...
Bubble Vasoline...
think about it...
Your shaved cat will love it!
It's called Petroleum Jelly ... not Chemical Jelly.
But hey, TPTB will gladly lube your ass with organophosphate compounds if you so prefer.
Flatlined You had me rolling with this comment
This is kind of skewed by the fact they only count people who enter the workforce immediately after getting a bachelor's. Not sure what the Tyler thinks this says about MBAs which are of course POST-GRADUATE degrees.....
Its also skewed by the fact that hiring in the engineering areas of Eletrical and Computer/Software Engineering have been relatively scant over the past decade. The average starting salaries might be as shown, but 2/3rds of the graduating classes, even from major Ivy League universities, simply can't find jobs. UC Berkeley, for instance, less than 40% of their grads, despite being located in the Silicon Valley, were able to procure post-graduation employment in the engineering fields.
Might be true in the People's Republic of California. The most business hostile state in the USA. But get in line if you want to hire a new EE from Georgia Tech. We are thrilled when we can interview one who has not already been hired by CISCO, HP, CISCO, AT&T, Google, Microsoft, et al. Or the Georgia Tech Research Institute, who pays the kids to get their MS and PhD while working on DoD R&D contracts.
That said, statistically there are sure to be some lazy, mediocre EE grads with an attitude who do find it hard to get and keep a job. But that will always be the case.
But Physics is hard and STEM is racist!!!
Hell yea STEM is racist. However, we have AA and Pigford to overcome the built in bias of "white" privilege by way of reparations for the neo con peculiaraities.