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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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My college roommate was an aerospace engineering major. Her name was Katherine. We called her Kitty Hawk.
So you're saying that me majoring in African Women's Studies at Bumfuck Tech for 80K in loans may not pay off?
yeah it may not
Well I'm shocked SHOCKED! I tell you. The recruiter told me I'd make it back in my first year or so. It's an investment in my future.
At least with a degree in African Women's Studies, you should always be able to find a job as a social welfare worker.
True, but not by much... http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/
It did for Moochel.
Good preparatory major for a Masters in Social Work.
The way things are going, you'd be better off with a degree in Agriculture or Animal Husbandry.
You said, "Animal Husbandry" heh.
If the engineers are out of jobs, especially the petroleum engineers, how they teach modern farming isn't going to be useful, and neither will most land currently called farmland.
Then you'd better long share-cropping.
Don't know many ag majors, do you?
What does a journeyman plumber make? How long does it take to become one? How much does the training cost?
cost: a phone call and a few months of earning shit (trial)... but don't tell that to anyone, they're still worried about how to make a living sitting behind a desk looking at facebook. After a few years under your belt, it's largely name your price.
5 yrs training and lots of tests for Masters License for American Citizens. If you are part of the Rubio's Dream team from Chechneya, Mexico, China, Viet Nam or Nigeria; then it's about 10 minutes on Webb Chapel to get the whole deal, license, credit cards, passport, SNAP card, obummer phone and mediacaid. Wha la, you are now a plumber, with benefits.
I have been an electrician for 27 years. Started at the bottom making$3.35 an hour out of school but was making$15 an hour when I was 20. I've been in a manufacturing environment for 16 years now and manage an electrical dept. The money comes when you are willing to manage people. That is because you have to deal with all the petty bullshit. Higher ups want to see results, but don't want to hear about any of the whining.
fokkin ray-cystes dont pae uhz afrikan studeez mayjahs enuff.
Diss bee pruuf.
As an engineer myself, I never had a problem in the past 20 years getting a job...no matter how tough the economy I can always land a job anywhere in the US....Thank God for that...
Even though Sanitation Engineer is not listed, I know I can clean up in this line of work, and collect all sorts of items...Found a bunch of unused combs once in Corzine's garbage...
Sanitation Engineers rule the roost if you allocate the 40 years of triiple-overtime-lat-year-salary they get in the pensions
Well, the best jobs are environmental related, like rendering pathogens impotent in waste, power for lights, water for drinking, house to shelter from the storm, and twinkies for food storage prep.
Those are *starting* salaries. They don't go up much for the scientists and engineers, while the sky seems to be the limit for the MBA types.
Also, in some types of engineering, Computer/Electrical in particular, firms receive hundreds, sometimes thosuands of resumes per position actually being hired for. So even if a person is fully qualified, they're incredibly difficult occupations to find employment in.
Careful - that kind of talk might discourage the kids from taking out student loans for CE and EE degrees.
That would be a good thing, since there's a giant glut of people with those qualifications out there.
Not true. My son's best friend recently graduated with BSEE, debt free because he worked his way through, had over 20 offers to "work" with 75k starting offers. Course it wasn't for a college or a bank or non-profit "service" industy job where the big boss is paid 927 times more than new hire clerks. RICO all banksters and their ho politicians. I paid sister patricia for 2 curses, one for hollywood that doesn't pay tax and one for Guam to tip over so that congressman from georgia doesn't have feel so stupid anymore. It's all about feelings, don't chu know!~
Interesting personal observation.
Data is not the plural of anecdote.
I'd have to agree with Tortuga. As an BSEE student who did his research, I know that there is somewhat of a balance between graduates and openings for EEs. (Who knows if that balance is being destroyed by the deteriorating economy.) However, that cannot be stretched all across STEM. There is a huge number of BSME students right now, probably more than the openings.
STEM is really broad as a category too, so I'd be careful with judgements.
Strange as most of my BSEE class from 2002 are still unemployed or underemployed even to this day. Haven't seen recruiters around my alma mater since the early 2000s. And we were ranked in the top 20 in North America.
Even the guys who were able to find employment, its not like employers were clamouring for us. The attitude seems to be, "you're damn lucky we even bother paying you". A lot of lives have been ruined by believing in the lie of an EE shortage. Even the post-graduation surveys from major schools like UC Berkeley and Cornell can't support more than 40% of the graduates going into employment post-graduation.
At least with CE and EE with a business minor, you can become "Steve Jobs" if you have the right idea. :D
Steve Jobs was a dropout, albeit he had some work experience in manufacturing at HP as a teenager. The conditions for someone like Steve Jobs to exist in the US economy hasn't existed for many years. Heck, we don't even let our own engineering grads work in this country anymore -- over 100% of the job growth over the past decade in engineering and STEM related fields has gone to foreigners on the H-1B while we leave our nationals submitting resumes to glutted resume queues.
That kind of goes beyond my point. Yes, the conditions are terrible for start-ups.
However, my point is that engineering and business education combined provides an excellent foundation for entreprenuers to rise with new products that sell!
Fuck employment, time to innovate and rise! That's the only way economies truly grow, because of innovation backed by VCs. Say thank you to engineers and VCs for that computer you're typing on. :)
You want growth, fuck what economists like Krugman say. INNOVATION, CHEAP ENERGY, AND PROPER FUNDING.
Your'e right. People that produce "work" have been getting short shit for quite some time as opposed to hokum service industry jobs for the best and the brightest. How else could HR managers justify 500k salaries for clerk positions.
Most engineers could probably care less as long as they received so much as a professional acknowledgement of their job applications. But in the EE/ECE/CS/SoftEng fields these days, most employers don't even bother. There is so much of a glut out there that the 'silent' treatment seems to be perfectly acceptable to employers.
Pitz - The MBA types are not finding it easy to capitalize on the MBA - it actually decreases their chances for an engineering job since the extra education doesn't mean that much while a masters in science may be better.
Computer engineers can find work easily - I know grads last year all got good jobs - some had multiple offers 3 months before graduation.
#^%*&! Should've taken petroleum engineering at LSU....
Honey Badger didn't.
Can't wait to see this after obamba-care sets in and they mandate $100k tops. Of course, the best and brightest won't be in this group - affirmative action will mandate that a certain % of illiterates gets to bes dahctahs nows. "takes 2 dime bags and callz me in the morning"
Honestly, though, the two dime bags will likely do less harm and will may even be more help than the shit big pharma has bribed your HMO physician to write you a dozen scripts for. Less costly too, and the profits don't go to enriching some useless CEO or "research" to come up with even more dangerous drugs.
http://rt.com/news/rockets-russian-plane-syria-575/
Left out Congressional Politician. Starting salary: $174,000 + Pension + Health Benefits + Expenses + Free Lunch + Free Junkets to Israel.
Qualification: Popularity with sheep and willingness to be a corporate/supranational whore.
NB. There's virtually no difference between Computer Science and Computer Engineering. I don't know when they started that distinction. Also Management Information Systems used have higher starting salary. A lot higher, if you got the work.
Engineering jobs are great and all, but you're not going to be rich being an engineer. Entry level pay is $60k for those jobs above. That's great you say, but your raises and bonuses are for shit. There's not a lot of turnover in engineering jobs, so when you see $90k average salary, it means the average is getting paid 50% more than what they started out at. Your experience is basically not that important. People pay for the degree, and if and when they don't need you, good luck. Because there's low turnover, it's tough finding another job.
Personally, I'd rather get paid shit starting off, prove myself, constantly get raises and bonuses and triple the starting salary in 10 years. $35k to $100k in 7-10 years. Yeah, a lot of people wash out. But I'd rather be good than degreed.
Sounds like you have a plan. Go for it. Good to read about people with plans and goals.
Catullus, depends where you want to work. An engineer working at a poo factory or in govt owned water treatment is likely to make shit.
I work in LNG in Australia and engineers here are creaming it. We are starting to send design work to Houston because we consider it a 'low cost centre'.
Also, for those with some charm and a bit of entrepreneurial spirit, a chem eng degree is an excellent companion to business.
You live in a strange world.....
world 1-engineer @ 75k/yr + 3%/year increases
10 year total = 860k
world 2 (fantasy) @ 35k/yr + 12%/year increases
10 year total = 614k
2 observations
1. It would take 17 years for your 'fantasy' world to catch up to the engineer world.
2. You should be a banker if you think 12%/year increases in salary are 'sustainable'.
I'd like to see a student debt versus first year salary chart please.
OT: Barf is on it! Feds Eye AP Hoax Profits
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/feds_eye_ap_hoax_profits_NwLFuxUNw...
Yeah, wonder who profited in 2.3 nanoseconds...
Hey, fucking up the Golf of Mexico's ecosystems comes at a pricetag of course. And so many more places to fuck up. You need specialists for that.
Please write a check to an aboriginal way of life preservation fund of your choice since your entire existence, including the waste of energy you used to post this comment, is hypocrtical until you live completely off the grid. Maybe that check will earn you some goodwill with Gaia.
Until you live a zero petroleum energy and petroleum product lifestyle, you can go fuck yourself hypocrite.
I hit a nerve there I believe. We are all hypocrits in a way but most of us don't have a choice. The fact is that the world could have moved away from petroleum quite some time ago if only the political will was present. Political will is of course dominated by money. Don't worry, the way human kind is 'advancing', the planet will sorts us all out. There is nothing Gaia behind that, just logical and rational processes: garbage in, garbage out. Just like your comment.
One minute, there buddy.
OK, got my tinfoil hat on and drank a glass of koooool aide. Now I understand where you are coming from. Your're right or is it left?
"Political will" = I am powerless.
We aren't all hypocrites, but most of us are slaves that believe there is something called "political will" and that you have to argue and complain incessantly in order to influence it. Politicians are a poor substitute for personal action. If you want a world without petroleum then get on it. If your idea makes sense then it will gain traction. It's only hypocrisy when you say you have a solution and then talk about a nebulous thing called "political will" to cover for your being the same as everyone else using the internet and driving a car. Doing stuff that you dont like isn't hypocrisy, it's usually just a means to an end.
Well yea!
For instance we have community organizer specialists that still haunt the wasted ecosystems of Detroit, Chicago, NO, Phil, buffalooooooo etc.etc.
True story...I was in Chiang Mai eating some Chinese food at a small table. A nice young Chinese man asked if he could share the table with me because there was nowhere else to sit. So we began to chat and I let him talk...He was an engineer who left his field to pursue the world of stocks...lol...to make more money...he was on vacation in Thailand for Chinese New Year...so the moral of the story is, not only in the USA are dreams being chased in the stock market...
If you count benefits I can get more $$$ from welfare with 3 illegitimate kids than with a Finance Degree. With 4 illegit kids I can do as well as an Aerospace astronautical engeneer. Who says dreams don't come true in Amerika any more?
He's not kidding. Skip to slide 8 to visualize.
http://www.aei.org/files/2012/07/11/-alexander-presentation_10063532278.pdf
NICE!
Don't give humanities majors crap. They know that by taking out massive loans and not paying them back, they are hastening the demise of a dying system. They might as well learn something interesting along the way.
I taught some kids from a family in North Louisiana who were getting 78,000 tax free money among the 10 members of the family....was written up in Reader's Digest several years ago
I have an MBA and I have a petroleum engineer waxing my car every morning.
And after you're gone to work, he waxes and buffs your wife's 'Shaguar'.
I'm not surprised. US industry basically hasn't hired any EE/CS/SoftEng/CompE people, on the balance, over the past decade either (nearly all of the net requirements have been filled with foreigners on H-1B). Even Ivy League universities can't generaly show more than 1/3rd of their graduates finding employment in many of these engineering fields. Its a catastrophe for US citizen engineers, that's for sure.
is that because he is retired and wealthy beyond belief and wants to help out someone 'unfortunate'??
Lots of degrees heavy in math and science. Good thing America's education system is really strong in those areas...oh... wait a minute
The 'system' may not be great overall, but US-trained math/science grads are amongst the highest quality in the world once they do graduate. And there's a very large number of them unemployed or underemployed. Some of the major ivy league schools only manage to place 1/3rd of their STEM grads into relevant employment. But nobody really wants to discuss what happens to the other 2/3rds who essentially have their lives ruined.
The other 2/3 (actually, more like 85%) end up in 'technical sales', if they are lucky. Engineering schools never seem to explain this to their enrollees.
Does this mean that PUD's upcoming degree in Womyn's Studies will not be financially lucrative for him?
Oh well, no great loss --- money is immoral and 'unnecessary', anyway. And really, who needs to 'hoard' academic learning either?
(Just don't ask him about his OWN latter-day slavery, wallowing in student loan debt instead of in the evil mercury-laden mud of African gold mines.)
Some get paid by what they know, others by who they know and whom they 'blow'.
A famous university does not give you a better education, but a better Rollodex.
Study and plan accordingly.
I'll tell ya a very high paid job in the near future....commercial and securities lawyers with experience in bailor-bailee law and interpreting claims, liens and emcumbrances on a certain yellow metal as (in their eyes) held by central banks, offshore trusts, bullion banks, ETFs, international monetary funds, SWFs, and A-rab princes
I call Bullshit........ I am an Engineer, and can tell you its not the way to go....
If you are a Teacher here in the Northeast, Starting is Mid / High 40's with a Bachelors, Masters 60K.... Figure in the Bennies and fringes with being a teacher, and their all in is way more than an engineer. In my district Average salary is a little over 100K, unbelievable Pension, non-contributory health care, and 2 weeks paid time off during the school year. Saucon Valley school district in PA, if anyone wants to look.
My medical as an engineer, well lets just say Obozo care will be an upgrade for me. Retirement is 3% match on a 401K plan, and my bonus would buy a dinner off the value meal at McDonalds.
There are 2 year programs to use a college degree to get a Teaching certificate. Sounds like you'd be happier going to that greener pasture.
Right, Teachers. It's all sunshine and flowers and summers off.
spoken like a true teacher. the teaching profession is the only "professional" job in the usa that does not hold it's "professionals" accountable for their work by a measurement of results, the only profession that has almost no exposure to layoffs or termination, the only profession that doesn't consider 60 hour weeks just part of the job, the only profession that blames the customer for failure, the only profession with 3 months off/year with a full year salary and a millionaires' pension.
if you want respect, do your fucking job like the rest of real life workers have to without the incessant bellyaching about how tough it is.
if you don't like your salary, move to locale that pays higher! eventually, when all the smart people who 'produce' something leave, there will only be money takers and looters left....
how long you think that is gonna last??
The adverts on this article are incredible...
it says:
"About to Graduate? You are now eligible to go on a 1 year USA work visa"....
except seeing that you're reading ZH you may not be eligible for said visa...
Ahem (cough).... Shifty look at US TSA official, don't make eye contact..
am I on business or pleasure? Eh...ok, say business...which business? Ehh..pleasure...I love USA...I love Friends...and Dexter...and Obama...now you've done it, he's lookin funny at me...and flicking through my passport...I hope he doesn't know about zerohedge....lord help us..!
7 years of college down the drain.
If you are a black transexual partially disabled lesbian, you can write your ticket in a liberal city government job with any degree.
this looks like the pecking order of the late 60s...40 years and the wheel comes a full circle.
In the 80S the finance and business sector were tops...
Now I remember why I studied engineering when I was in school.
What I find interesting, though, is how narrowly the MSM now refers to technology. To them it’s synonymous with computers, electronic products, and the internet. That’s it, as if the fields of mechanical, chemical, nuclear, aerospace, materials, structural, civil, etc. engineering and science don’t even exist or matter anymore. At best we occasionally hear a special report about financial engineering these days, which is probably the worst of all insults for real engineers.
they just want you to buy a tablet and just absorb media
that's all they tell you what technology is
Pro golfer or major college football coach seem like the obvious career choices to me.
I don't get it why work ?
If inflation is greater than interest...
A full six years of school before I was 14 got me a great job buiding leases in the Canadian oil patch. I build the leases with my
Cat D9 where the Rig Pigs drill their holes. Six months a year work for around 100k plus. Free food and board and all the diesel I
can run in my pickup. It's a no stress job because i spend all day in my air conditioned cab smashing my 60 ton dozer through
any thing that gets in my way.
THERE'S NO LIFE LIKE IT !!!!!
back in the day, just after the sun was discovered, our motto was "cees get degrees" because it didn't matter what degree you got someone was going to hire you and pay well. i know several people who were taught chemistry and biology research and engineering on the job with no degrees or an associates degree.....but then the usa ruled the world. all of these jobs can be done by a chinese or indian equivalent for as little as a fifth of the price(except maybe the petro engineers).
From other ZH articles, we know that for a family of 4, $60,000 isn't a middle class salary anymore. Earn anything less and you'll likely qualify for enough government sponsored income support to bring you up to that. Also, those engineering jobs usually demand such high levels of technical/creative production that 60 hr work weeks are common.
So the brightest people who worked the hardest, earning difficult engineering degrees and then working long hours in demanding environments are only earning just-enough.
From what I know, government contracted (chief) engineers make the most. (+$100K for 40-50 hours/week)
Yup, and engineering is highly cyclical to boot. With no extra compensation for that. There's been almost no hiring of US citizen EE/CS/SoftE/CompE's in the past decade (on the net). So for every 1 person who manages to find a decent salary in those fields, there's a large number that can't. Hence the resume queues at outfits like Google receiving 1000 resumes per job. Or 5000 resumes per job at Microsoft. Does an actual HR clerk bother reading all those resumes? Hardly. There is an epic glut, and somehow this has been marketed as a 'shortage' because employers are too intransigent to pick up the phone and start hiring.
Take this chart, and in your best Sam Kinison impersonation, beat your kids, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters and every friend getting ready for college, screaming at them, "Major in a hard science, dumb a$$! Cultural studies, French poetry, psych... NO, NO, NO! Hard sciences!!!!!"
Seriously though, if the government won't get out of the student loan business as it should, then it should at least give preference to majors societies actually need.
not to mention that compost side-account ;~)
I wrote my post in Word and pasted it into the Zerohedge box. My paragraph formatting disappeared and I can't get it back. It makes my post look like it was done by an idiot. Aargh.
An idiot wouldn't end up where you did, much respect here.
My major was in Afro-merican studies. I know how to gets a SNAP card bitches!
What's totally missing is that ROI clarity, the finance majors is an order of magnitude of capital gains per used scientific brain cell way ahead.
I bet engineers are better at investing then those jokers with finance degrees
sure the finance guys are better at stealing though
The first four on that list is what the state agency I work for is actively trying to recruit right now from the upcoming college grads. If any kid wants to walk right in to a good paying job with great benefits the Railroad Commission of
Texas is trying to fill open positions. This particular agency is very powerful as it oversees all oil and gas production in Texas and is hugely funded by federal grants, (is probably no surprise ot anybody).
An engineering degree without an MBA has serious limits in management in most companes, you can go higher faster with the pair.
fuck management
in the old days it took work to manage well, but now with all the easy information everywhere and better tools, etc, managers are just a bunch of lazy fucks shitting out endless ideas with no care or clue how to do any of it
I'm a Chemical Engineer with 8 years experience and I'm making $20/hr with no benefits.
No way starting salaries are 65K+, even in the Boston area which is a top 10 cost of living area. Perhaps for 4.0GPA MIT grads, but not the general population. 57K for a 4 year finance degree? LMAO. Maybe in NYC.
Tyler,
I wonder why your chart does not include freshly minted grads with medical / pharmaceutical related majors.
For example, here in Florida, degreed Pharmacists make over $120,000 per year (without calculating benefits); that's for straight out of Pharmacy school.
Just wondering.
I think what the chart implies is "And the highest paid undergraduate college majors are..."
I have two of those degrees, yet no job (figured who needs a job when you can just buy SPY).