Do you have a source for these claims? I just did a bit of googling myself and did not find the $56K number. To the contrary, this source says art historians make $40K on average.
In addition, I found the $49K plumbers number from the BOLS, but it’s for the median salary, not the average. So it gets weighed down by a lot of entry level people.
That’s like comparing the average salary of a football player to a plumber. Just like every kid who plays football in school doesn’t go onto the NFL, not everyone who gets an art history degree will be able to be an art historian.
What has changed now vs. the past is that tuition costs have gone up so much. Back when you could get an art history degree and only have $10k in debt, it didn’t matter if you became an art historian. But if you end up with $120K in debt getting that same degree, it’s much more important to know if you will be able to use that degree to pay off the debt. Just having a generic degree doesn’t open up the same doors as it did in the past.
Nobody is going to change their college major because Obama talks like an art-hatin’ Republican. I’m all for incentives that encourage people to pursue degrees in fields that might have more direct economic value since that sounds like smart policymaking to me - although I also think art ads a lot of value to our lives and I’m not going to write if off as worthless. But I’m also not convinced that art history degrees are the problem here. According to the Department of Education, here’s what people are studying in college:
Note that business degrees (presumably useful, by this line of logic) dwarf everything else. I doubt all the social science and history degrees are useless and the same goes for the health degrees. I’d be interested to see a much more detailed breakdown, but I don’t think the economy is drowning in art history and theater degrees. There’s also a separate question of whether or not you’ve “wasted your money” if you don’t go to work in the field you got your degree in. I’m sure in some cases that’s a waste and becomes bad debt, but I think that’s a complex determination.
Not just the idle rich. You can only get a BS in engineering in college, you can get an MRS in art history.
plumbers might not be a great comparison because they got hit hard after the real estate crash but they still seem to be doing better than the average art hsitory major.
I suspect that this brings down the art history graduate’s average income down quite a bit. Would you like fries with that?
I have degrees in philosophy, economics and law, none of which I directly practice on a professional level. However, the substantial rates my clients pay are largely due to the analytic rigour I bring to their publications—a skill honed through seven years of intense schooling.
An in-depth liberal arts degree can be extremely valuable. Though some approach it with a trade school mentality (I majored in art history therefore I must work in the art history field), focusing your curriculum in an area of interest does not devalue the worth of the education in general.
Yes, as we all know any liberal arts degree can be used for a wide variety of careers. For example, I know two people here in DC with divinity degrees who are GS-15s here in DC, making probably $155,000 or so in areas which have nothing to do with God. I did not factor in how many art historic majors become entrepreneurs or investment bankers. But my post does directly respond to the OP’s views, however.
Why should I do your research for you? I cordially invite you to spend your own time finding the answers to your own questions, and I would be interested in what you come up with.
Leaving aside your repeated and gratuitous references to Republicans, it’s just a question as to how much influence any president has in what he says in some random speech. I’ll grant that it’s not much, but then he’s not investing a whole lot either.
It’s more useful to focus on whether, to the extent that he does influence things, he is influencing them positively or negatively, rather than harp on the fact that the world is not going to stop in its tracks because the president said something in some speech.
Absolute numbers are irrelevant. What’s relevant is supply relative to demand.
Actually that particular source was one that I did come up with. But I rejected it because it’s a number for historians generally, not for art historians as you claimed.
They’re accurate.
Then perhaps you could dig up some cites about the relative supply and demand for these different types of degrees. I agree there’s no shame in going to trade school and working as a plumber or an electrician, and even if it’s human nature to look down on work that gets your hands dirty, it shouldn’t be that way. But even if that part of the equation improves, it doesn’t change the fact that something has to be done about skyrocketing college costs and student debt. You can be young and have a degree in the “correct” field and still be burdened with overwhelming debt.
You’re assuming that one’s college degree = one’s job.
Which is entirely fucked-up, and if that’s why you’re in college you’re there for the wrong reasons anyway. You’re part of the problem.
Higher education should teach you to to be a better, more understanding, more accepting citizen of the world; training for a job is the employer’s responsibility.
Perhaps that’s true - I may have been misled by the fact that the title of the article is “The Average Salary of an Art Historian.”
Be that as it may, the whole point Obama made is stupid. Seriously, how many people have ever said to themselves, “My two passions in life are art history and pipe fitting. I’m going to choose a career in one of them, but oh my - what a dilemma! I guess I’ll go with art history, but I may regret it later!”
The whole implied premise of Obama’s statement, and the OP, is that the worth of a career is measured in substantial part by earnings. I reject that. Coal miners make a heck of a lot more money than carpenters do; should he suggest that Americans should stop swinging hammers and start working a longwall shearer just because the money is better?
I agree with others who say they key problem is our educational system, including the cost of college. But it is pretty insulting to tell people that they’re wasting time pursuing what they want to study and should instead go into a field that they probably don’t care about just because the paycheck is bigger.
Art history majors surely know the risk they run if they pursue that career, that is, a job that doesn’t have huge earnings potential. But let’s not gloss over that very few museum curators run the risk of having to take early retirement due to back and knee problems (even setting aside the risk for more traumatic workplace injuries).
However employers no longer think that. And many fields require years of training, years no employer is going to give you.
Precise numbers are not important. The salaries reflect the relative supply and demand.
The fact that something doesn’t solve all the world’s problems doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of consideration. Improving “part of the equation” is also a worthy goal.
They were examples.
I think a lot don’t realize the extent of it.
We have a friend who wanted to be an art history major, but her father would not pay for college in that. So, she became a business major, worked for 35 years, made reasonable money, and was miserable. Being an art history major is fine if that is what you love and if you are willing to take the risk of not finding a job.
However I object to what Professor Ann Collins Johns said. It is true that art history majors learn to think - but that is true for plenty of other majors, including ones which will give you a much higher chance of getting a job. If that is her only defense of art history as a major, she and the field have problems.
Ironically, 5.7% of people with art history undergrad degrees eventually enter the 1%, making it one of the top precursors to 1%dom.
The moral, most people spouting off about how we should all be plumbers have no idea what they are talking about.
Assuming we have accurate salary data I guess you could take that position. I’m not all that impressed by a cite that says it was “calculated using the average salary for all jobs with the term “art historian” anywhere in the job listing.”
What’s being considered? I’m just seeing vague rhetoric about pursuing a trade. I’m fine with that, but you don’t have to disparage other degrees to get students to consider a trade. And for that matter politicians in both parties are always talking about fostering technological innovation and how they’re going to create good jobs and drive economic growth - and they’re not talking about plumbers and electricians. The focus on degrees in STEM fields isn’t going to create more plumbers either.
And I’ll say again that if you’re concerned about debt and unemployment among college graduates, encouraging people to consider vocational school is not going to address the biggest problems. In theory maybe some people would end up with less debt, but there are structural problems that have to be dealt with.
If Obama had said that people should stop being janitors and think about being brain surgeons, would you think that he was right? He’s just using examples of two jobs, you know.
Because you know quite a few art history majors? Or are you just predisposed to think of art history majors as being clueless?
Let me ask you another question: would you encourage law school graduates not to be public defenders, and instead be corporate attorneys? The corporate attorneys make so much more money, and we’re dealing with two populations that have already sunk their money into college and a professional degree.
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Philosophy/economics undergrad double major sounds a lot like a prep school for the LSATs. I have no idea what you do for a living but the fact that you were able to use your law degree to do something other than law is great but not really where most law students end up.
Wait, so every engineering major is a part of the problem?
Says who?
Cite?
And how many of them weere children of the idle rich to begin with?
The top precursor to 1%dom is being the children of 0.1%ers.
I think people are spouting off about getting a major in something that is more appropriately a hobby for most people than a major of study. Its the sort of thing that very few people should be studying seriously during their college years and might be more appropriate for might classes at the local community college.
This is sadly more and more the case.
So wait, in this example, art history majors are janitors and tradesmen are brain surgeons?
I think he’s trying to do is legitimize the choice to pursue a trade rather than a college degree.
I know quite a few art history and music majors and they either married well (an always intended to), went to name brand schools (and got a job as a curator or academic somewhere), but a lot of them struggled (some of them have become very successful small businessmen an interior designer, an auctioneer, advertising agency) and frequently ended up doing things they could just have easily done without the degree and debt that came with it.
Do you think the people who run the Louvre just kinda do it as a hobby? Or maybe they started out unclogging the toilets and worked their way up to being curators?