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America's Most Popular And Best-Paying Majors
Over the past month, the topic of how valuable a college education is has been extensively dissected by everyone from the San Fran Fed to Pew Research Center. The conclusion, contrary to what the Federal Reserve would like everyone to believe as Americans scramble to load up on hundreds of billions more in cheap student debt, is that a college education is certainly worthwhile... to those who can afford it outright without getting in debt. However, for those unlucky to have been born with a silver spoon, the reality is far bleaker and the conclusion is that a college graduate household, on average, tends to have a lower net worth around the age of 40, than non-college graduates without debt.
However, since a Keynesian economy can only operate as long as there is a net infusion of new debt, even if it is the lowest quality and least discretionary (if only in theory) debt - the kind used to pay for tuition - this nuance is largely ignored by statist apparatchiks who extoll the virtues of the opportunties presented by a college degree, ignoring the unpleasant reality of what it means to have record student debt in a time when the US economy is barely growing at a 2% rate, and when one needs a piece of paper with a college stamp on it to get a foot in the door for any job, let alone the best paying ones (in the process making tenured economist professors who perpetuate this status quo, even richer).
But only focusing on the big picture averages ignores something even more important: what fields of study do American concentrate on - because obviously the salary of a business grad is vastly different from that of a computer science specialist from that of a teacher, and thus - what are the most popular majors? And, just as importantly, what is the average salary by discipline?
For the first answer, we go to a NPR analysis which recently laid out the history of popularity of various majors over the past 4 decades. What it found was the the top 5 most popular majors for the most recently available class, that of 2011, is the following (as % of total grads):
- Business: 21.38%
- Health professions: 9.53%
- Psychology: 6.53%
- Education: 6.17%
- Art and performance: 5.58%
Here is the full breakdown (with a drill down after the jump):
NPR notes the following:
- The persistence of business. Business majors, which include accounting, marketing, operations and real estate, grew even more popular over the past several decades. One in 5 college grads now gets a degree in the field.
- The decline of the education major. The education degree saw a dramatic decline, falling from 21 percent of all graduates in 1970 to just 6 percent in 2011. Does this mean there's a huge shortage of teachers? Not necessarily — it just means that far fewer students who go on to be teachers actually graduate with an education degree. According to the Department of Education, as recently as 1999 roughly two-thirds of new teachers graduated with an undergraduate degree in education. By 2009, that figure fell to just half.
- The rise of health professions. Over the past decade, the health care sector added jobs month after month, even when jobs were disappearing elsewhere in the economy. And the field is projected to add lots more jobs in the coming decade. So it makes sense that the share of students majoring in health-related fields (like nursing, pre-med and physical therapy) rose sharply in the past decade. Roughly 1 in 10 college grads now gets a health-related degree.
That answers the first part: what do Americans study in college.
As for the second part, which majors pay the best wages, we go to the April 2014 edition of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). The details are as follows:
The reporting year for the college Class of 2014 begins with an overall average starting salary of $45,473. Although this salary is 1.2 percent higher than the April 2013 starting salary of $44,928 reported for the Class of 2013, the increase is considerably lower than the more than 5 percent increase predicted for graduates at that time. This means, starting salaries for the newest crop of college graduates appear to be leveling.
In examining the average salaries by discipline, similar evidence is revealed. The percent changes within each category for 2014 are notably lower than they were in April 2013, ranging from nearly flat for business degrees to less than a 4 percent increase in salaries for health sciences graduates. (See Figure 1.) In contrast, the first report for Class of 2013 graduates showed percent changes in the broad categories that ranged from nearly 2 percent to as high as almost 10 percent.
And in table and chart format:
The summary: is college uniformly bad (or good)? Absolutely not: the answer depends on one's initial financial situation, what one studies and majors in, and finally how one applies said knowledge. However, all else equal, is it wise to incur over $100,000 of debt for a humanities major paying a low $30,000 wage? Absolutely not.
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Is this net after taxes? I haven't known a single comp sci to make less than $90k in 10 years.
I only make $60K (been in the field for 1.5 years).
That should climb a respectable amount, especially after year 5, assuming you don't hunker down in a forgotten corner of a single company.
The combined welfare/benefits for a single mother is comparable if not better than some of these starting salaries. The liberal utopia is here!
I noticed the same thing, but to get there does require one is a welfare mother taking advantage of almost every single option available.
That said, little question in a multiperson household the welfare options available probably eclipse these salaries.
Work hard, young engineers, millions on welfare are depending on your taxes (and printing that devalues your earnings while you sleep.)
Wait wait .. people actually creating things or supporting todays electrnoic world actually make money? Shocker!
However, all else equal, is it wise to incur over $100,000 of debt for a humanities major paying a low $30,000 wage? Absolutely not.
Gee wiz, really? So, otherwise it makes sense then?
I'd like to see a category for all the obscenely-paid young banksters (Citi, Goldman, JPM, etc) broken out from BUSINESS in that salary scale.
It would blow the overall scale all to hell! Everyone else would be so far down in the miniscule dust as to be utterly insignifant.
A co-worker's son, who graduated from MIT, went to work for one of the Algo companies. At first he thought these people were gods. After a while, he realized that they were criminals. He quit his job there, even though the salary was spectacular.
So let's see... one hedge fund manager makes $2.2 billion in 2012 and the average food stamp recipient gets in the neighborhood of $250/month or $3000 per year. So our hedge fund manager gets as much as 733,000 food stamp recipients. For doing about the same amount of productive work.
Sounds fair to me.
Let me guess. The Cato Institute??? That's where you got your welfare facts from, right? Unfortunately, Cato was incredibly dishonest and deliberately gave no context. The average single mother would receive about $16,000 in welfare, and that number varies by state.
Now, what Cato did to conflate that number was to include Medicaid benefits. That is were the Cato report authors were deliberately dishonest. They knew full well that even if that single mother was off welfare and working a minimum wage job, she still would qualify for the same Medicaid benefits.
What institutions like Cato do well is bet on the ignorance of the populace. Throw around big numbers, whip up resent against the most vulnerable and then collect grant money and other monetary donations from the very same entities that have caused our economic nightmare. Cato bet on your stupidity. It was a well placed bet.
From the report...I highlighted the good parts because you obviously can't comprehend long reports:
"Critics of Cato’s 1995 study pointed out, correctly, that not all welfare recipients actually receive all the benefits to which they are entitled. That is particularly true of housing benefits, as we have discussed above. Similar arguments can be made regarding utilities assistance, WIC, and free commodities. Still, with the exception of housing in states with less than a 10 percent participation rate, we believe it is proper to include the full package of benefits in our calculations because at least some recipients in every state do receive them. Moreover, the likelihood of receiving those additional benefits is primarily a function of the length of a family’s stay on welfare. That means that hard-core welfare recipients, who spend long periods on welfare, are likely to be receiving those benefits."
Here is the good part:
"Still, since not every observer will agree with our approach, we offer Table 16, which shows the value of a welfare benefits package that includes only those benefits received by nearly all welfare recipients: TANF, SNAP, and Medicaid. Even with this limited array of benefits, welfare exceeds the value of a minimum-wage job in eight states."
"Still, it is undeniable that for many recipients—especially long-term dependents—welfare pays more than the type of entry level job that a typical welfare recipient can expect to find. As long as this is true, many recipients are likely to choose welfare over work."
Conclusions: Read it and weep buddy. Let me guess, you up-voted your own post too, loser.
Hey, your ignorance is your burden to bear, not mine. Yanking on your dick will not change the fact that Cato correctly judged your intelligence. In the future, it may do you well to direct your anger towards the real economic villains in this scenario. Those that stole $23 trillion of wealth from the middle class since 2008 with more to follow. Single mothers didn't get that money.
Say what you will about me, it doesn't change the facts. Nice to see none of my rebuttal was addressed by you. Won't even take a stab? Rather attack me directly (Ad hominem)?
Criticizing the welfare system does not mean that I support the theft of the middle class' wealth by the wealthy and well connected. You must understand that welfare programs give governments the foot in the door for more devious dealings. Get a clue, buddy.
I have to correct you on one more thing: Single mothers got some of that money.
One more thing...I suggest you actually read the report. They did a pretty good job and treated the data fairly and even addressed critics like yourself in the report. They bent over backwards to satisfy people like you (see Table 16). I guess you can't convince people who have no independent thought and stick to the talking points. It is sad that 3 people and counting agree with you. You supplied no facts and were only able to unsuccessfully attack me personally. I have to learn that it is pointless to argue with people such as yourself.
Bullshit!!! You had no rebuttal. You just parroted the flawed and deeply dishonest Cato report, and every time you repeat their bullshit, you prove my point. Obviously you didn't read the report critically, for if you had, you would resent Cato's presentation.
No, single mothers on welfare did not get one fucking penny of that $23 trillion. Single mothers on welfare don't head over to the FED's discount window and get virtually free money and lend back that money to the government at 2%, home buyers at 4 1/2% and car buyers at 6%. They also don't own massive foreign banks that get taxpayer money.
What's up with attacks on single mothers?
I see married couples paying with foodstamps in supermarkets. Sadly, that does not deter them from procreating.
Let me guess. The Cato Institute??? That's where you got your welfare facts from, right? Unfortunately, Cato was incredibly dishonest and deliberately gave no context. The average single mother would receive about $16,000 in welfare, and that number varies by state.
I just read the report. They are actually very honest and transparent. Sorry, but your accusation holds no weight.
Now, what Cato did to conflate that number was to include Medicaid benefits. That is were the Cato report authors were deliberately dishonest. They knew full well that even if that single mother was off welfare and working a minimum wage job, she still would qualify for the same Medicaid benefits.
If you read the report, they directly acknowledge and answered a similar question and re-calculated the numbers (see Table 16). Sorry, but you are being disingenuous. (Although, now re-reading this comment, it hardly has any relevence to my origincal comment or the report. Throwing darts blind and hoping one sticks, huh?)
What institutions like Cato do well is bet on the ignorance of the populace. Throw around big numbers, whip up resent against the most vulnerable and then collect grant money and other monetary donations from the very same entities that have caused our economic nightmare. Cato bet on your stupidity. It was a well placed bet.
Sounds like you never read the report. You probably had some knee jerk reaction to it, never researched it yourself and never gave it a second thought. Between the two of us, it seems that you are the ignorant one. If not, you are being purposely deceptive.
Craploads of CS grads can't find jobs at any salary. This is why firms like Google, Yahoo, amongst others, are absolutely innundated with resumes from qualified people and have the luxury of interviewing very few.
If only STEM jurbs fell from the sky we would all be in nirvana...
All the skills in the world won't save us if no one is willing to take on risk... and create jobs for the people with "mad skillz"...
As long as they can get thousands od H1B visas that will continue.
Zuckerberg likes cheap labor.
Craploads of CS grads can't find jobs at any salary. This is why firms like Google, Yahoo, amongst others, are absolutely innundated with resumes from qualified people and have the luxury of interviewing very few.
Um NO total 100% bullshit, unless you're talking about nonsense schools. Lot of shit resumes come in from 'university of phoenix' type garbage but finding qualified people is tough.
No, most firms are receiving literally hundreds of qualified resumes for each job they post for CS, assuming they're willing to pay a decent salary. Perhaps try looking at some of the resumes sometime instead of just assuming that everyone who didn't graduate from your university of choice is 'garbage'.
I may have knee-jerk responded to your comment - thought you were hinting at the immigration thing. If you're just saying they're selective, then yes of course, one would assume google has the luxury of being pretty selective.
That said, I know straight from the horses mouth that they have a lot of difficulty finding in terms of their expectations qualified people - no media bullshit / manipulation. And it's not necessarily where you went to school either, I was just pointing out a complaint that they get a tonne of resumes from joke programs.
I've been in the labor force for 40 years, starting in electronics, switched to software.
The level of employer pickieness is way up, and employer contribution to professional development of even established employees is way down. (like zero)
And I see companies bragging that they offer 9 paid holidays and 2 weeks vacation. 30 years ago, that was the minumum, with most employers offering at least a day or two more.
Yeah, it is a winner take all economy.. I know people who are extremely good at what they do but because they're not in the top tier they're considered highly disposable. Not sure what there is to be done about that though. Especially the age factor, that's the thing that scares me a lot.
Do the words "purple squirrel" strike a familiar note?
And I know many employers who are so innundated with resumes from qualified individuals that they can't even be bothered to send a postcard or make a phone call in acknowledgement of the individual's applications. I personally know quite a few people who have been forced to leave the field, not because of lack of qualification (ie: CS degree, math degree, EE degree, etc.), but rather because they simply cannot find a job.
So please spare us the "its difficult to find people" bullshit. It might be difficult to find a proverbial "purple squirrel", but bright grads are abundant and available if you just know where to, or care to look in good faith and have a reasonable budget for hiring.
"Craploads of CS grads can't find jobs at any salary." "Um NO total 100% bullshit, unless you're talking about nonsense schools."
I'm not CS, but I am an engineer and it took a whole damn year to find employment, even with two years experience. I worked for two years in copper mining as a Metallurgical Engineer, went back to grad school for a Master's in Environmental Engineering and applied for literally hundreds of jobs in that year. Graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla and most job postings for engineers required five years experience in that specific field (which no one will have).
Profit margins are so tight right now that companies can't afford to train engineers even as a huge wave of engineers are retiring. I got lucky to get into a position finally, but it should not have been that hard since I completed multiple internships, had work experience, and had done undergraduate and graduate research. It's a BS economy - I finished my Bachelor's in December 2007 and (again luckily) landed an engineering job before the crash of 2008, but of course I have to graduate into the fucking Great Depression II.
When my daughters were sophmores in high school I asked them what they wanted to be. They both gave me puzzled looks. I then proceeded to tell them that what they wanted to study was petrochemical engineering.
...
And did they listen to me?
Hell, no. So they both have graduated college but neither is making $100k/yr. Serves their insolent asses right. Hah!
Hmmmm... I applied for one of two CS positions at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore way back in 1996. Since the application deadline was imminent, I hand-carried my resume to the institute. While there, I noticed several large boxes filled with what looked like resumes, so I asked the girl who was accepting them. She said that they'd received over 600 resumes so they were triaging them -- PhDs in box 1, MScs in box 2, all others in box 3. I mentioned that I only had an MSc, and wondered out loud of it was even worthwhile applying. She gave me a rueful look and replied that she was pretty sure that at least two of the PhDs who had applied would be qualified for the job.
That was 1996, for a job that started in the $30Ks. I can only imagine what it's like now.
There is CS and there is CS. If your CS training focuses on designing pretty webpages then yes, there may be a problem. Real CS, actual programing, actual system administration, we always struggle to find qualified people, or people we think are trainable on the job
There's crap-loads of qualified people out there in CS, "actual programming, actual system administration". You must not be looking very hard if you can't find plenty of qualified individuals or people you think are 'trainable'.
I see literally plane loads of H1B's shipped in everyday. The joke is on America. They intend to destroy it.
Forget CS, they ship in loads of H1Bs to fill QA jobs, which are low-skill 9-to-5 jobs that don't require a lot of knowledge and anyone with a bit of training can pick up. I found out that top investment banks are paying those people 90K+ a year and that's not including those who charge $500-600/day as QA consultants. Why not give these jobs to Americans?!
The bigger problem is those low-end jobs were the traditional stepping stones to better jobs in the sector. So basically by outsourcing those jobs, they've thrown the entire talent development pipeline into the garbage, and now some employers complain that they can't find the talented people. Additionally, the low compensation chases a lot of otherwise talented people right out of the sector altogether, which is certain to have a long-term impact on innovation and productivity.
That's garbage. If companies were struggling to find help, they would be taking flyers on "the right person with the wrong experience." They are not. In all too many cases it's only a fig leaf before they hire H1Bs.
In my limited personal experience....
1) I took a couple CS classes as options in university. I remember everyone except for two of us in one 4th year class failing their exams (they tried to cry to the department that the professor was too hard on them). I had very low confidence in my "peers" and would not be surprised if those people can't find jobs in the field - in fact I hope that's the case.
2) I didn't study CS as a major in university (self-learned in my free time), and I had no references. Despite that, I had no trouble getting my first job in the field... all I had to do was demonstrate my ability in a multi-hour technical interview.
3) The company I work for is perpetually short on staff (appears to be a theme with how large organizations operate) and I believe they interview candidates regularly. I strongly suspect that companies don't want to hire low-quality CS candidates because you can't train people to be intelligent and apt at this sort of work and it would be a waste of their time. The desirable candidates will have trained themselves one way another, rather than going to school and expecting that their piece of paper will get them a cozy job.
Just my $0.02. I'm sure it varies by region.
Many firms run short on staff because they simply refuse to hire any. Whether its bureaucratic intransigence, or simply cost cutting, they interview great candidates and extend no offers. The whole ruse of a 'shortage' is often created by HR to justify working existing staff even harder. And if a field is in an alleged shortage, salaries would be skyrocketing like they have for the various medical, financial, and legal professionals over the past decade.
I'm well aware that "shortages" are manufactured in this way, but I don't think it's a bad thing and I don't have pity for unemployable people (just because they got a degree doesn't mean they deserve a job or shouldn't have to continue to work and fight for one after school - if they actually worked and fought while in school, rather than partying and enjoying their free ride).
From a corporation's perspective: Why waste your existing talented employers' time training sub-par or "average" candidates who might not be smart enough for the job, and who - even if they are - might not stick around anyways?
Top grads can't even get interviews, that's how bad things are in the market these days. So its not a matter of not wanting to train sub-par individuals, but rather, its a case where supply absolutely overwhelms demand, and the government makes it far worse by allowing foreigners in on H-1B visas to further depress wages.
A quality CS, EE, IT, Math, Physics degree should at least get a grad an interview at most tech employers who complain of "shortages". The Yahoos, the Facebooks, the Google's and Microsoft's of the world (prolific H-1B visa users!). Yet most of those firms don't even interview more than 1% of the qualified applicant pool.
The quality of degrees is up for question. Nowadays we pump as many students through as possible and we're not allowed to flunk them and half the students are useless, lazy socialist idiots. Everyone has the right to a degree! (And maybe then to a job?!)
Maybe I'm just lucky - maybe I was in the top few % of the applicant pool (or maybe it's a regional anomaly). But then again, would that really be luck? Can we seriously complain that companies only hire the best workers and expect them to hire anyone who spends 4 years partying at school? They aren't charities. If people want to work for the best companies, they need to prove they are the best and that they deserve it.
Now, if you want to argue against immigration, we might find ourselves quickly in agreement - at least superficially. I hate the fact that we give our jobs and our wealth away just as much as you do. White man is already in the minority, yet we're the only group that doesn't get special minority rights. We really are too good, giving all our welfare and aid to the poor of the world, leaving ourselves poor and without jobs in the process. We have the liberals, moralfags, religious and other do-gooders to thank for this. We should never have abolished slavery, but we are weak. White man got squeamish and gave up his own power, and that power is quickly shifting to other nations and peoples who are stronger than us. If we want "equality" (as apparently the majority of us do, and everyone else is a psycopath) then we must be prepared to be equally poor as the third world. We also have to confront the irony that most of the 3rd world presumably does not care about equality and will not face the same moral dilemma when the tables are turned.
There's nothing wrong with the quality of the degrees from reputable schools. Engineering and CS is still a meritocracy at the undergrad level. Attrition rates of 2/3rds are not uncommon, and at least at the reputable engineering schools, nobody graduates without a final project thesis, or similar which employers can examine.
Everyone has to start somewhere, it just seems that the claim of the schools being crap is made by those who are rather ignorant when it comes to the training of scientists and engineers.
Pitz wrote:
Exactly correct. And some of my relatives think that I am unemployed because I am unskilled and stupid. They refuse to believe that unrestricted immigration is the primary cause of my unemployment.
Amazingly, most Americans still do not understand these terms: "H-1B visa," "L-1 visa," TN-1 visa," etc.
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@pobox.com
In all fairness, your relatives might be right. If you had marketable skills you would find employment (or create something of value and sell it yourself), and if you were smart and motivated you'd spend your time gaining marketable skills towards that end and putting them to use.
If, instead, you look to cry about it and place the blame for your unemployment elsewhere, then you are no better than anyone else on social aid who expects handouts (whether in the form of food or easy employment opportunities).
Seriously, your sort of reply isn't helpful. The sort of skills that make a person a great scientist, are exactly the sort of skills that probably would make them a terrible marketer (ie: an ability tell the truth). Just because an individual isn't employed doesn't magically mean that they are unintelligent. In the contemporary case of STEM workers, the fundamental problem is that society has fundamentally created an environment in which STEM-qualified personnel and skills have been deliberately devalued.
When an individual picks a career path, they're doing so typically for a 40-year chunk of their life. And STEM traditionally has provided for superior career opportunities and compensation over the long term. At some point, STEM skills will come back into favour, and all the Wall Street bullshit will fade to black. But there is nothing 'crybaby'-ish about pointing out how messed up things are, at least in the short term.
If STEM skills make you a robot (only able to follow tasks, not able to create your own tasks or market yourself), then I suppose you will always be at the mercy of others, just like sheeple in every other field who lack the motivation or ability to take control themselves. At this point one is faced with 2 options: A) try to maximize one's potential and find creative solutions to their career problem, or B) look for someone to blame other than oneself.
If one is to consider oneself a "scientist" and one who tells the "truth", one should at least try to understand this much of the picture and admit one's own limitations, rather than look for others to blame.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/16/Scholars-Debunk-Claim...
People need to wake the fuck up. I can make $60K just fucking around with garage sales....or Ebay or some other bullshit... If you make less then $60K here in the US then you are waking up on the wrong side of the bed...or you are making somebody else a whole lot of fucking money. If I can own your ass.....for lets say $15 to $20 an hour...is that acceptable for you? $20 an hour is $41,000 a year....How much can I own you for?? Think about it? You only have so many hours in a day that you can work. When I see the statistics of what people make it is shocking to me. There is a saying....and it is very true. "YOU EARN EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE WORTH". If you don't have the motivation...then you better not complain. We all wake up the same way each morning...it is the choices you make or made that put you at different income levels....except for liberals...always someone elses fault. Right?
Takeaction! Dude, nice riff on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0QJOLbl2E
Many people are lazy or unmotivated or just want to be content and "happy" with their lives. These people can either take control and accept their conditions, relax, take it easy and drop out (maybe become Buddhists or move to central america or something), or they can perpetually complain and feel entitled their whole lives. The latter camp is rather comical in my eyes... always someone else's fault, always someone else's duty to fix their problems.
Chilean activist destroys $500 million in student debt documents
http://wealthydebates.com/chilean-activist-destroys-student-debt-papers-...
That was very Tyler Durden of Papa Frito-Lay.
I don't know what planet you're living on, but I want to live on it too!
Why are 'Stock Manipulator', 'MSM Keynesian Shill' and 'Political Bootlicker' never on the list? Oh, I know, it would skew the scale too much, the other numbers wouldn't even show a rise off they X-axis.
That is what the word "business" means.
The biggest joke in that lineup is teaching "business" in college. The way to learn business is to go do business.
It's code for "business as usual".
SOZ, you do good bizness.
And how much does freeloading pay?
So according to this, the pricing of grads is roughly: For most non-careerist majors $40K, for careerist majors not requiring intense math $50K, for careerist majors requiring intense math $60K.
They should break out the differences between HFT computer programming and NON-HFT computer programming.
The increase of 1.2 % salary vs April last year is encouraging, since we don't have inflation the new serfs can put that money right in the bank!
What does concern me is it's less than (GASP!) the 5% predicted by the dumb fucking talking heads.
/sarc
Serfs up boys and girls!
Looks like STEM should be updated to sTEm based on those numbers.
It's very, very misleading because of the fact that innovative and clever people often have a major, but then work in multiple disciplines. I know one engineer who is now the CTO of a very successful company. He is also the best microbiologist and most competent gene-jock I know, even though he never was "formally trained" in these areas. Smart people do smart things, period.
Oh, I know. I'm a one-year college dropout who's a 1%er supplying services to major tech firms.
I think the main issue here is selection bias -- everyone who's represented in that graph in engineering, for example -- worked through the hardest curriculum of the school and graduated. You could probably take the same person fresh from high school and hand him a stack of textbooks and manuals and get the same result with zero tuition.
Which category does the increasingly popular Grievance Studies major fall into? Sociology? Humanities?
Law.
where is the "banging sluts and getting wasted" Major? ...the only good reason to go to "college" IMO
That falls under Vaginafestology, an undocumented major.
What can one say to the 2014 Graduate class that could help them weather the storm?
Clearly we have tough times ahead.
We are faced by:
1) an imminent collapse in the financial markets;
2) a geopolitical situation that is so rancorous and toxic that to call the next big one "WWIII" would be to understate it...call it, rather, World War Mosh Pit (WWMP)...people will be killing one another so hardcorp that the Rwandan Genocide will look like a Red Cross operation;
3) global climate change and the collapse of global food production will mean certain death for BILLIONS...making death by machete seem pretty humane;
4) no jobs and a stagnation in the minimum wage at 3 rats per 24hour shift. Squeak!
So I think that the best advice to give someone who is graduating this year is to invest in a rat farm.
Rats eat dead people and the demand will be high. And, also, let your little summa cum laude know of the need to hide from the eventual hungry mobs and impressment gangs! These two pearls of wisdom will be invaluable!
Now go get 'em, Class of 2014!
You need to ditch those rose colored glasses pal
Yeah, I hate all that 'glass-half-full' bullshit.
There are 3 types of people.
Those that say the glass is half empty.
Those that say the glass is half full.
Those that point out the liquid in the glass is piss and not water.
We need a new glass that will be filled to capacity when the same amount of liquid is poured in, and then we need a team to say that we have plenty, and there is no deficit of liquid whatsoever.
Job creation ho!
I am a software engineer.
But I am not a computer scientist (whatever the actual fuck that is supposed to be) and that was not my major in college.
A lot of engineers I know couldn't engineer their way out of a wet paper sack. All books and not much good sense, they write software that only they can use. Silly Valley is over-run with them but there's not much practical use for people like that. I spend most of my time fixing their opaque and busted bullshit.
Computer science is a joke. Great engineers are not made, they are born.
Yes, see my post above. Smart/innovative people pick up all kinds of skills and adapt, they are not confined to some "career track" for any given major. They see solutions to problems, develop them, patent them and say pay me motherfucker or fuck off.
Software engineering requires a certain aptitude for puzzle solving, the ability to think in the abstract, an appreciation for the aesthetics of recurring patterns, a familiarity with concepts like entropy, the ability to communicate with non-technical people and translate their ideas into usable tools, and an adaptability and intuition as to which new technical innovations constitute game-changing evolutions in the technology landscape, and which ones are just passing fads.
Unfortunately, the industry-standard concept of software engineering is 'that job I send to those guys over in India, who will bang shitty code out, but for a really good hourly rate and at least I don't have to deal directly with them, so I can pay some overpriced IBM or PWC consultant here to explain to me why the project is late, but is really coming along and should be ready any day now...'
Someone has to do the math. :)
Computer science died around 1990 but nobody has burried it yet - it died when nobody had figured out anything new and "scientific" about it since about 1965. If you ask anyone today what "computer science" means they give you a list of apps. El Wrongo.
Yet it may come back some day, so just throw a tarp over it and wait another few years, why not.
Indeed. You wanna know what's the most ironic? San Jose police officers out-earn most technology sector workers in the Silicon Valley. Yes, mere police officers, with a fraction of the responsibility, out-earn tech workers.
And, coming in art #9 employment with the:
D. Ept.
of
H. uman
S. acrifice.
Yes, the indoctrination centers now offer courses for & prepared by the DHS. I love the smell of Fascism in the morning.
Aggregate math and (all science), lame.
Physics bitchez:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/physicists-and-a...
Since when was the BLS accurate?
Where are the English majors? You know, the ones whose diplomas are printed on the back of a Starbucks application.
2/3rds of STEM graduates cannot find jobs in the field. And CS/Engineering jobs tend to be concentrated in the highest-cost living centres. So naturally there will be somewhat of a bias upwards, even though, if you adjust for all of the factors, the pay is very poor.
And at least in CS/IT and even EE these days, top grads can submit their resumes and not receive the courtesy of a response from the employers who are innundated with applicants. A million H-1B visa recipients have absolutely destroyed the field for Americans.
Nicely said.
The importation of cheap, skilled labor has put the West on a slide to the bottom.
But the Indians and the Chinese will be open to these same forces. The bottom is the bottom and Corporate Capitalism is digging the hole for us all as deep as they can.
STEM..wtf is that? sounds like more bs to me..I hear this stem shit all time time...get a real degree and go do it
Depends on where you go to school. It isn't worth going to college for the price and the quality of education you get.
----
I truly think that the problems experienced today are societal: Fast food, quick fix, consumer whoring without taking the human and environmental cost into consideration will eventually bring us down hard. The lifestyle that tells us to buy continuously cannot last -we need to go back to basics by simplifying our lives and reducing our dependance on large corporations for food, information, and so on. Community gardens need to be built to feed the needy, but those of us in agriculture are up against powerful government-backed entities such as DuPont and Monsanto -even the government itself, unless we work for them (I chose not to).
If you want freedom, start with defending your food and your right to harvest rainwater and go from there.
STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics -- or various variants on such thereof. Basically nerds, who 'business' types see no problem in taking full advantage of. And most are too pussy to fight back in any meaningful way.
If you take Education (Giverment), Healthcare and social services, fair number giverment, and you add in what they identify as Giverment.... well thats a big number... Surprised printing press operations isnt on the list.
SO which if any of those jobs with an average salary in the $55k range can support an average home price of $350k+ with $5,000 a year in property taxes?
Even the high range of $75k can't buy you a $500k home, which in many cities with jobs is becoming commonplace. I'm looking at garbage homes in Massachusetts, 1200 sq ft that need work, in a decent community that are $310k. Sure if you have two people each making $75k it is affordable, but what happens if one person loses his or her job?
In the '90s the same professions paid virtually the same wage, in some cases even higher. The difference was just about everything you bought was half the price and almost every home that is priced $350k right now could have been bought for $200k or less.
I'm trying to figure out where all these people selling homes are getting the idea that there is this mass quantity of buyers that can afford the asking price.
Hey, you can move to Chicago. Plenty of jobs here. With $75K income, you can afford to buy a decent 3 bed 2 bath in a very good area. ;-)
And you will be living in Chicago...
And you will be living in Chicago...
No thanks to that. I'll take my chances in infantry.
So...almost everyone is making 40~ 60k, what a joke, on that kind of wage, you cant even support yourself, never-mind a family.
With the cost of food and gasoline and housing today, you need 120k+ to support a family, or you need a family of 6 all working all contributing to the household.
The inflation is horrible.
The only way these salary ranges would "work" for the average american.
If real-estate taxes were eliminated completely.
and
If the income tax was abolished, leaving more money in their pocket.
Since a 60k salary means more or less you are taking home 40K ish if you are lucky after taxes.
Throw in 5~9000$ a year in real-estate taxes, 500~900$ a month in food, and a car payment of 120$ + a mortgage of 2800$~4000$
Most people will have to get into debt in order to just survive, and are well on the path to bankruptcy unless they double their income every 6 years.
"and a car payment of 120$ + a mortgage of 2800$~4000$"
You must live in a palace and drive a refinanced 1982 Datsun pickup.
Ya, but the overall thesis is correct. 60K a year is not enough for most folks to raise a family.
That is why they don't have any. That is why we import cheap labor, skilled and unskilled.
USA Capitalism is Canabalism/
Actually its more like 1500 Sq Ft and a 1998 Rav 4 ;p no car payments , but yea you are right car payment figure should be closer to 400$ a month, just futher pushes my point tho, starting salary = wait 7 + years to start your family, and WOOPS dont have a kid before then or you are on your way to the poor house early.
And saving? whats that? we haven't saved anything in America for decades because of inflation.
Errr... you know that the $40K to $60K is the starting salary, right? In my field (computer science), most people make over $100K after 5-10 years. Then they can buy a house, have a family, etc. It's called delayed gratification. You can't have everything you want NOW.
No, over $100k in CS is fairly uncommon/rare, and is mostly limited to the high cost centres where $100k doesn't really get you very far (ie: NYC, SFBay, LA, etc.). And most grads can't even find their first job, $40 to $60k even. If CS people were in demand, then the up-front salaries would be considerably higher. But as it stands, the job market is incredibly poor for them.
Exactly, why give someone a raise, when you can fire them and hire 3 dudes for the price of one? or better yet! free INTERNSHIPS.
Like the bankers delay their gratification with bailouts? ;p please, delayed gratification is what the people who are getting their shit NOW tell the people who are getting robbed Yesterday.
The America where people work hard, wait and save hasn't existed for decades, its all about finding an angle and paying off the right people to get what you want nowadays, everyone waiting in line will never see anything.
The CS degree-holder has already delayed 'gratification' for (usually) 5 years, and we're getting a lecture from someone on how they should delay gratification even more, as though $60k is a good salary?
As it stands, the glut in CS is so bad that most CS grads can't even find jobs, and those that do, get treated to crappy starting salaries.
My son is a CS grad. The only jobs available in our area are help desk. But he's happy for even that.
I'd be astonished if he was even hired to such a position. "Help desk" is usually for high school grads, not someone vastly overqualified with a CS degree.
HAH! I heard that you can make over 45k just by spending an hour on one's computer just by visiting a suspicious website.
I got an email for a wealthy Nigerian princess who wanted to give me her virginity and millions of wealth if I would just click a few email boxes.
Yep, then the company makes you train some visa 'visitors' and at the next 'downturn in the economy' there are a bunch of layoffs and a new operations center opens in bangalore and the poor sob with the family and a house wonders what happened to his job and how can he feed his family and keep the house.
Its great isn't it?
You mean Psychology, History and basket weaving don't pay well? That asshole at the bank said if I took out all these student loans, and just made an attempt to go class, I could get a real high paying job! Go figure! (sarc)
50 thou a year, buy a lotta beer. Things are going great, and they're only getting better. I'm doing alright, getting good grades, my future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.
Just make sure you get alot of clam pies, they aint that easy to come by later on son...
Sound about right. The company that I'm working for starts someone who has Computer Science degree at $60K + benefits. Yes, that's entry level; fresh out of college with zero experience.
It would be nice to see the salary of other popular majors like lawyers, doctors, etc.
Big fucking deal, $60k was a standard starting salary back in 1999-2000 for CS grads, and its 15 years later. The lawyers/doctors are starting considerably higher, and they have far greater mobility upwards, while that CS grad is stuck in cubicle hell for many, many y ears.
"while that CS grad is stuck in cubicle hell for many, many years. " yeah if they're lucky and the company keeps their operations in the US.
Perhaps financial aid should be tied to majors in demand.
$80k invested in humanities degree is a bad bet.
$80 invested in a computer science degree is a good bet.
If you said that out loud at a bar, you'd first be called a racist, and next be drawn and quartered by some neo-feminist-nazis.
Except that the humanities grads are snapped up by government, or some private company takes pity on them and hires them. While demand for CS grads is extremely limited and firms are looking to outsource and import foreigners evey chance they get. CS is no magic bullet, and demand for CS grads relative to supply is very weak.
Most of you are missing the point of why we have a HUGE higher educational system.
Most college/University "education" is a means to warehouse excess population in a box made up of Hopes and Dreams.
"Just work hard, get a bachelors in the STEM fields, and your ticket is punched!" But no Job.
"Just get a Masters degree and all will be roses!" But no job?
"Just get a Ph.D. and you will make it big!" But no job!!!!
"Just get a VOLUNTEER job in the field and, soon, that PhD will pay off...you just need to get your foot in the door!"
See, there are jobs out there. They just don't pay people to work.
Most of the post-graduation surveys do not count someone as 'unemployed' if they go into a Masters or PhD program post-graduation when they can't find a job. When demand was vigorous in the past (ie: 80s, 90s), Masters/PhD students would be considered 'employed' because their employers were paying for them to study.
If you are a new grad in the USA in something useful and you are soaked in debt, I strongly suggest you leave the USA and go to someplace like Singapore, get a job, drop your US citizenship, and default on the debt here, and then send Uncle Sam a "fuck you note."
When you see the black helicopters and hear the knock on the door, fire off a quick last post if you're able to, and let us know what to expect.
Where's political science in all of this? Screw your constituents and enrich yourself in the process. There is the core of the coursework right there. No degree needed.
If I were 20 again, I'd become a drug smuggler and then retire early. None of the jobs listed above are worth a lifetime of commuting and slaving for psycho bosses, owning a business being the exception.
Drug dealers retire early in prison and have a short commute to the exercise yard. I am glad I got a degree in Physics and started my own business.
This useful information ignores a major consideration for college. Are you going to college to become educated by very smart and well trained people (increasingly difficult to find) for the purpose of being well grounded and constructively formed in a variety of disciplines? Or, is college your professional trade school to punch your ticket for job consideration, and to partake of abundant opportunities for partying and getting laid?
THEN, figure out how much it is worth to you.
The old answer was you went to be educated, then people took the bachelor's degree as your entry ticket and validation that you weren't a dunce, they'd hire you realizing you knew nothing useful on day one, and they'd train you for five or ten years as long as you kept making progress.
The problem is almost nobody does that anymore so people look at the STEM jobs as job training and expect you to know something useful on day one. This is unlikely, and so if they pay by value they don't pay so much. And hardly any job situations last five to ten years at all, without getting laid off and replaced with cheaper stock or the whole division shipped to China.
So it's hard to know what to tell a kid today, except to look hard at being an entrepreneur, and that really the college degree doesn't help a lot with that except socially.
You have just described picking up day labor in front of Home Depot.
Same problem without unnecessary degrees.
A lack of listening /comprehension skills.
Be productive or be gone.
I noticed the big shift around 1999-2000. Prior to 1999-2000, firms eagerly engaged new grads as they came with all the latest/greatest skills from the universities. Employers believed they could immediately bring value to the organizations and were out eagerly recruiting them.
After 2000, new grads were basicaly characterized as being morons, stupid peons that would need to be trained for a decade. Instead of permanent roles, firms moved to 'internships'. Temp to hire arrangements. Benefits were stripped away, as were pensions. Quite a disgusting course of action, cutting back in the areas for which the phrase "don't fuck with the talent" is quite apt. No wonder innovation has slowed to a crawl.
Of course the H-1B program began in 1991, but it took a few years to really kick in, and there was the entire Internet boom going on from about 1995, and then the Y2K panic, and then we had the Internet bubble collapse in 2001, and basically no recovery since.
Some of the changes are a "maturing" of the industry and were probably unavoidable. A big chunk is attributable directly to H-1B, and another chunk to globalization more generally. But the biggest chunk of all is a change in "the social contract", a change in management treatment of employees generally, part of the generational change from the WWII vets to the boomers and then to the Gen-X and Gen-Y types. And little or none of it for the better.
The H-1B's weren't let into seriously core areas of business until the late 1990s rolled around with the Y2K scam. It took many years for firms to become 'comfortable' with the idea that the H-1B visa would persist and not be cancelled on a whim by the Clinton administration, or a subsequent administration.
Just want to repeat what a few people who know what they're talking about have already said, that the reported ranges for compsci and engineering that top the chart, have actually fallen 25% to 50% in real terms since about 1990 and continue to fall in real terms every damn year.
I suppose you can argue "So what?" if all the other categories have fallen even further, but the point is that doing ANYTHING for a salary has hit the toilet.
Word is also going around that this year's compsci graduates at least, are finding a tougher job market than ever before. I know my own job search is tougher this year than anytime since about 2009, it seems the whole field or maybe the whole country has slipped down another cog.
I was making $45k in 1993. I am making $140k now. None of the stats match my experience. I have jumped between java, scala, C++ and perl or whatever language or OS is needed to complete the task. The only one I actively avoid is .Net. I have taught myself every language I have used except for C at the beginning of my career. I'm currently self teaching angularJS/yeoman vs lineman, grunt vs gulp, and phonegap and coffeescript. I do this in my spare time - just like with java, scala, ruby, perl, C++ back in the day. I think i am the exception since I still am the only one actively still doing work that is at my age.
Yes, the stats - my stats - do match your experience.
Here, become edumacated.
$45k in 1993 at 5% inflation compounded would today be about $125k - for the NEWBIE that you were in 1993. For the senior that you are now, in 1993 you'd be making say $90k. And how much would that be today, hmmm?
If I was a senior in 1993, I would hope to be retired 20 years later (est today). But that's heresay, conjecture and stuff.
"$45k in 1993 at 5% inflation compounded would today be about $125k - for the NEWBIE that you were in 1993. For the senior that you are now, in 1993 you'd be making say $90k. And how much would that be today, hmmm?"
*Counts fingers*
Fuck this I'm a business major I'll just hire some H1-B to do the math for me.
CS graduate employment has been shit since the late 1990s. When the tech sector finally started recovering circa 2004-2005, most of the hires were foreigners on H-1B or similar. An entire decade worth of US citizen grads have largely been discarded.
Probably the most disgusting part is the Google's and Facebooks of the world running around claiming vigorous demand for CS talent, when they are innundated with so many resumes that they can't even possibly consider the merits of hiring all but a small fraction. The H-1B's need to be deported before the economy will start to actually recover for the tech sector. Bullshit "social media" and "advertising" companies will not be our saviour.
the other real employment danger in the compsci market is the 27-30 year old washout rate as companies replace old talent with new talent who know all the new stuff intuitively already.
There are very few 27-30-year-olds in the compsci market as firms haven't been hiring very many people for the past decade. Those who managed to get in mostly did so as a matter of luck, not skill. Firms simply aren't interviewing enough of the talent pool to even call it a 'meritocracy'.
Wow, that "top paying industries" chart cracks me up. So like 1100 graduates won the degree du jour lottery, compleat with high* first year salary. What about all the others, lolz? You know, the 1.8 million others?
* enjoy it while it lasts, highest 0.1% o' new wage slaves
Grow Weed!
Even Jeff Spicoli can crack 100k /yr without working up a sweat.
IF it becomes legalized most everywhere, the price will drop like a stone. Then the original farmers will be able to become motivational speakers and selling books like the Secrets to My Success. Maybe you can make tons of money when it's illegal, but not after it's legalized.
You bitchez thought you were going to be music or movie stars, and you are slowly figuring out you won't be, and you are PISSED.
Welcome to life.
The one I worry about the most:
Accounting.
I fear that the Greenspam and the Bernanks and now old Yeller have made Accounting the new Underwater Basketweaving degree.
It should not be, but approaching a decade of Accounting debasement has its toll.
A good waiter/waitress in a moderately busy decent restaurant can make in excess of $50K annually without the student loans, college eduction.
funny story. several guys in our circle were unemployed at the same time. we decided it was time to party. all of the guys happen to be married to nurses, who were still employed. the theme of the party, therefore, was " thank god we are married to nurses!". there is a lot to be said for the trade degrees, from compsci to engineering to nursing to plumbing.
Nurses had it pretty nasty in the 80s and 90s. Then a large wave of retirements kicked in.
I remember years ago seeing how petroleum chemists and engineers made fantastic sums of money. That's true, but only when you annualize their salary. Many of them only work for a few months out of the year.
I still don't understand the reason for presenting this information. It's as if college education is the only way to go these days. I spend many years going to college and grad school, but my annual salary may be capped at 160k. The sad part of the presentation is that current salaries have risen but standards of living have gone down, and eventually your income level, savings, investment and everything is practically worthless due to inflation.