# Should universities focus more on programs that lead to specific career goals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 22, 2018, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018 "2018-03-22T12:57:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/61 "2018-03-23T18:50:29Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > What’s it to you if they are willing to put in the time and the money because they see value in it? Often, they’re not spending their own money, but other people’s money. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/62 "2018-03-23T19:06:27Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > The OP has clearly argued in accordance with the first point of view, without stating it outright. Congratulations on your mind-reading skills. > [@](#): > > And certainly what types of schools (after high school) are allowed to exist, and what courses they should teach, is the business only of the schools themselves and the students who want to go there. No, this isn’t true. We all can, and should, express ourselves on the subject, especially given the amount of public money being spent on it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/63 "2018-03-23T19:39:51Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > You realize you just used a concept you learned in Microeconomics to describe why microeconomics was not useful to you? > > I’m happy to quibble about the exact curriculums schools should offer, and to discuss ways to make them more useful, but I’m not prepared to let go of the idea that a broad education makes you smarter… Since micro was one of the ones I clepped, I’m not sure the argument holds - if anything, it shows that you can boil an entire semester class into one or two basic concepts that take a few sentences to communicate rather than literal months wasted in class and tests that you could have spent exploring ideas and frontiers you were actually interested in. On a broad education making you smarter, where is the evidence? Do you have any citations? Because I fundamentally disagree that a FORCED “broadening” of education is either a worthwhile or efficacious goal, and that’s where we are today. By all means, we should OFFER a broad diversity of classes in college - the more the merrier, and let everyone follow their innate interests. But literally forcing a broad diversity, particularly when the fact of forcing it itself terminally degrades the quality of instruction and the amount you can actually learn about the topic on hand, I feel is a mistake. If you have some peer-reviewed citations or evidence otherwise though, I’d be interested in reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/64 "2018-03-23T19:47:45Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > So this whole thread is about one school deciding that its not getting enough applicants for certain programs and deciding to drop those programs? What is the debate then, if you aren’t advocating other schools drop the same things as this one? I’m saying just because something might be right for UW Stephens Point, it doesn’t follow that this means anything at all to any other schools. No the point of this discussion is; 1. do you all see other schools paring down certain departments, mostly in the liberal arts and humanities fields, and focusing on others which have clear career pathways? 2. having programs be required to show employment, income, and job placement data for its graduates? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/65 "2018-03-23T19:49:08Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > By all means, we should OFFER a broad diversity of classes in college - the more the merrier, and let everyone follow their innate interests. But literally forcing a broad diversity, particularly when the fact of forcing it itself terminally degrades the quality of instruction and the amount you can actually learn about the topic on hand, I feel is a mistake. > > If you have some peer-reviewed citations or evidence otherwise though, I’d be interested in reading it. I think schools already can with all the online coursework available. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/66 "2018-03-23T19:51:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > No, this isn’t true. We all can, and should, express ourselves on the subject, especially given the amount of public money being spent on it. > > Regards, > Shodan This also I agree with. Dont colleges always talk about how much or how little money they get from the state? They are not private schools. Why shouldnt the general taxpayers have some say in what is taught there? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/67 "2018-03-23T19:55:07Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > It’s been many years, but I remember these as being particularly pointless requirements: > Biology 101 and 102 level > Micro economics 101 level > Psychology 101 level > Eng 101 level > Eng 102 level > History of the United states > Lit crit > Poli sci > Native studies (required in the state my college was in) > > As to my opinion, I have no issues with any of them being OFFERED, and think it’s a good thing they are - people come to college with varying levels of knowledge in various fields after all, and various interests. I have issue with them being _required_ to graduate with a degree which is a travesty and huge waste of time/money for a lot of people. If an institution has illogical “requirements” for graduation, students are free to avoid that institution. I chose mine, in part, because it allowed great flexibility in designing my own course of study. I think there were general areas we had to hit (science, history, literature) for a BA degree, but many choices within each area that could satisfy the requirements. My daughter, similarly, picked a school that didn’t require her to take any math courses. Some schools require foreign language study, some don’t. Each college will decide what they believe are essential courses for all to take. (plus, the accrediting agencies will influence the curriculum too). The tension between minimum requirements and student choice is always present, and every school will navigate it differently. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/68 "2018-03-23T19:59:50Z")
You know, the right wing has turned really against learning, knowledge, and science over the last decade or two. It’s rather refreshing to see their even greater disdain of the social sciences and humanities be so formidable that they can hold heir nose long enough to embrace education in sciences, if only for a fleeting second. Of course, should universities adopt the proposal to eliminate social sciences and humanities, I’m sure the goalposts will move again. Maybe we will start hearing that the only use of universities is to produce military officers and football players. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/69 "2018-03-23T20:00:14Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > For example, a few years ago, they revamped AP US History and AP World History. Both became much less about fact memorization and much more about analysis and writing. I teach AP English, and I can’t tell you what a difference it made in my kids. They write much, much better now, and they know a ton less history. I don’t exactly know how I feel about that, but it’s undeniable that the education they get shapes what they can do. But what’s funny is I bet most of those kids wouldn’t identify their history class as the place where they learned to write, and before, a lot of those kids after a while assumed that all the stuff they knew about history was just “general knowledge” that everyone knows. People are bad at remembering where they learned things, and once we know something it seems inevitable that we would. I just want to add in here that I enjoyed and got a heck of alot more out of english comp 1 and comp 2 in college at the jr. college than I did later taking comp 3 at the university level and definitely more than english and language courses back in high school. Why? Only in comps 1 and 2 did I learn to write! In high school it was all about crap like diagramming sentences and figuring out verb tenses and such. In comp 3 we read different books (which we had to buy) and discussed them. In comparison English comps 1 and 2 at the university level have maybe 300 students in the class (ours had about 20) and you had to buy maybe 15 books. But only in comp 1 and comp 2 (which BTW, I took both in the summer) did I learn to actually write. Plus we only used ONE small, cheap textbook (the Little, Brown Book) and even that just barely. so comps 1 and 2 were quick, to the point, and cheap. [HERE](http://www.jccc.edu/academics/communications/english/index.html) is where it was. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/70 "2018-03-23T20:02:36Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > This also I agree with. > > Dont colleges always talk about how much or how little money they get from the state? They are not private schools. Why shouldnt the general taxpayers have some say in what is taught there? Similarly, if you take the home mortgage interest deduction, taxpayers should have the right to tell you to take that awful “Elvis on velvet” abomination out of your living room. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/71 "2018-03-23T20:21:44Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Why shouldnt the general taxpayers have some say in what is taught there? The general taxpayers have the same say in education as they do over all the other functions of their states. State universities are run by state employees who are accountable to elected officials. In my state, the regents of the state higher education system are themselves elected officials. You pick the people that run things. If you want more say than that, run for Regent. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/72 "2018-03-23T20:29:28Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You know, the right wing has turned really against learning, knowledge, and science over the last decade or two. It’s rather refreshing to see their even greater disdain of the social sciences and humanities be so formidable that they can hold heir nose long enough to embrace education in sciences, if only for a fleeting second. > > Of course, should universities adopt the proposal to eliminate social sciences and humanities, I’m sure the goalposts will move again. Maybe we will start hearing that the only use of universities is to produce military officers and football players. This is a common strawman objection for persons who have a major stake in those areas such as persons who are employed in those departments. They will come up with a way to either coerce or force students to take their courses. I remember they would tell students to “dont think about the money, follow your dreams” and other crap to get students to waste time going after a worthless degree. But listen up. times change. College is way too expensive to waste ones time and colleges are paring down their institutions. Not every school NEEDS a department for blah blah studies. So basically, your just trying to justify a college wasting resources. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/73 "2018-03-23T20:39:53Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Let us, for the sake of argument, wind the clock back to the 1970s. Are you saying that if fewer college students at that time studied liberal arts, and more studied steel production, that both they and the country would be better off? Irrelevant question simply because the world has changed so much. For example: 1. Cost. Students didnt take out $100,000 loans back then that they would end up taking 20 years to pay off. 2. Job market. Few people had college degrees back then so even crappy degrees could often get one a job. Back then a law degree was a ticket to the upper class. Now lawyers often barely make it. 3. Gender balance. How many women were getting degrees back then outside of education and nursing? 4. International competition. Back then jobs were not being outsourced nor were companies replacing american workers with foreigners. So basically students could afford to take 10 years to complete college with the knowledge they could then get a decent job when graduating. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/74 "2018-03-23T20:43:58Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > You have a point, but when it comes to decisions (and in the ideal world, curriculum policy and decisions), those are inseparably intertwined, though. > > It IS two separate issues in the sense of what level of society you need to engage to address the problem (ie individual college-level vs federal debt-legislation level), but for the individual students, who are quite literally bearing all the costs both on the educational quality and financial fronts, I think they are part of the same whole that informs the questions of “should I go to college” and “what should I study in college.” Right, this is why I wonder, why not just go for a program like this one where you learn to install [wind turbines](https://www.mitchelltech.edu/programs/on-campus/energy-production-transmission/wind-turbine-technology)? Its only 2 years long, cost just $14,000, and leads straight to a decent paying job? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/75 "2018-03-23T20:55:04Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You know, the right wing has turned really against learning, knowledge, and science over the last decade or two. It’s rather refreshing to see their even greater disdain of the social sciences and humanities be so formidable that they can hold heir nose long enough to embrace education in sciences, if only for a fleeting second. You know what? I think the left wing has done a poor job on their end. They have wasted both time and money and given to society what? Graduates with degrees in worthless areas they cannot get jobs in so 10 years after they graduate they are still living with their parents, working at Starbucks, and trying to pay back those huge loans they took out because professor GrabYourBucks convinced them that a degree in blah-blah would lead to lifetime fullfillment! THEN they wonder, why the heck didnt I just go and learn to be a plumber? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/76 "2018-03-23T22:01:26Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I just want to add in here that I enjoyed and got a heck of alot more out of english comp 1 and comp 2 in college at the jr. college than I did later taking comp 3 at the university level and definitely more than english and language courses back in high school. > > Why? Only in comps 1 and 2 did I learn to write! In high school it was all about crap like diagramming sentences and figuring out verb tenses and such. In comp 3 we read different books (which we had to buy) and discussed them. In comparison English comps 1 and 2 at the university level have maybe 300 students in the class (ours had about 20) and you had to buy maybe 15 books. > > But only in comp 1 and comp 2 (which BTW, I took both in the summer) did I learn to actually write. Plus we only used ONE small, cheap textbook (the Little, Brown Book) and even that just barely. so comps 1 and 2 were quick, to the point, and cheap. [HERE](http://www.jccc.edu/academics/communications/english/index.html) is where it was. No offense, but if that’s the case, then why is your spelling and grammar so incredibly shitty? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/77 "2018-03-23T23:44:03Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Irrelevant question simply because the world has changed so much. For example: > > 1. Cost. Students didnt take out $100,000 loans back then that they would end up taking 20 years to pay off. > 2. Job market. Few people had college degrees back then so even crappy degrees could often get one a job. Back then a law degree was a ticket to the upper class. Now lawyers often barely make it. You can thank the Bush recession for that. My son-in-law got his law degree at just the wrong time. But things seem to have recovered, and he is indeed headed for the upper class. As for getting jobs, I graduated in 1973 and it was a matter of the state of the economy. CS degrees certainly meet all your usefulness standards, but tell a 2001 graduate how great he had it. > [@](#): > > So basically students could afford to take 10 years to complete college with the knowledge they could then get a decent job when graduating. Sorry, I didn’t know anyone who took ten years. Often people taking a long time are doing so because they are working part time to pay for college. Lots of colleges try to get people out - Maryland for one, at least when my daughter went there. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/78 "2018-03-24T00:07:48Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Right, this is why I wonder, why not just go for a program like this one where you learn to install [wind turbines](https://www.mitchelltech.edu/programs/on-campus/energy-production-transmission/wind-turbine-technology)? Its only 2 years long, cost just $14,000, and leads straight to a decent paying job? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were approximately 5800 wind turbine technicians in the US in 2016, and the Bureau expected the field to roughly double between 2016 and 2026. Say 12,000 total technicians. Once those 12,000 jobs are filled, what else is a graduate in Wind Turbine Technology qualified to do? What kind of options does a wind turbine technician have if it turns out (s)he hates the job? Between now and 2026, there will be roughly 40 million students graduating from post-secondary degree programs. If everyone working in that field quits today and those 12,000 jobs are each filled by one of those graduates, you’ve still got 40 million grads, give or take, who need jobs. The BLS also reports that the bottom 10% of wind turbine techs earn around $37,000 a year - I assume that’s entry level pay. But in 2015, the mean starting salary for humanities graduates was [just over $46,000](http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/). And over a lifetime, that difference adds up. Here’s an [article discussing that](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5198720/). Check out table 4 - that shows the statistically-derived lifetime earnings for men and women with various degrees, as well as for high school graduates. It also regresses those earnings to a present value at age 20. An average male high school graduate earns just under $1.5 million over 40 years of work. An average man with a BA in liberal arts/humanities, art, or architecture earns just over $1.9 million. Regressing those lifetime earnings to a present value at age 20, the median liberal arts degree for a man is worth $115,000. Women’s expected lifetime earnings are less, but the difference between high school and college grad is greater - the median liberal arts degree for women is worth $139,000. That’s a straight economic calculation that doesn’t take into account flexibility in employment, enjoyment of work, experiences, or any other intangible reward that higher education offers. Differences are much great for STEM degrees and grad degrees, but even the BAs that are so frequently derided as worthless show a significant return on average. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/79 "2018-03-24T00:25:01Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > You know what? I think the left wing has done a poor job on their end. They have wasted both time and money and given to society what? Graduates with degrees in worthless areas they cannot get jobs in so 10 years after they graduate they are still living with their parents, working at Starbucks, and trying to pay back those huge loans they took out because professor GrabYourBucks convinced them that a degree in blah-blah would lead to lifetime fullfillment! > > THEN they wonder, why the heck didnt I just go and learn to be a plumber? Clearly, that’s why no less a bastion of the left than the Wall Street Journal has [repeatedly](https://www.wsj.com/articles/good-news-liberal-arts-majors-your-peers-probably-wont-outearn-you-forever-1473645902) [touted](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-liberal-arts-are-marketable-1504549779) [liberal](https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-is-much-to-learn-from-the-liberal-arts-1506272989) [arts](https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-want-your-child-to-succeed-dont-sell-liberal-arts-short-1520030546) degrees over the last few years. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018/80 "2018-03-24T00:35:12Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Graduates with degrees in worthless areas they cannot get jobs in so 10 years after they graduate they are still living with their parents, working at Starbucks, and trying to pay back those huge loans they took out […] :rolleyes: Excuse me for finally interrupting your enjoyment of content-free speculation and threadbare folklore with inconvenient allusions to fact, but… cite? Exactly what evidence are you basing your stereotyped claims about so-called “worthless areas” on? For example, [this assessment](https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/college/T012-S001-worst-college-majors-for-your-career-2017-2018/index.html) of the 10 currently “worst” college majors for lucrative career prospects lists the following: > [@](#): > > 1. Culinary Arts > 2. Photography > 3. Art > 4. Paralegal Studies > 5. Anthropology > 6. Graphic Design > 7. Radio, TV and Film Production > 8. Religion > 9. Animal Science > 10. Exercise Science There are only three stereotypically “useless” traditional liberal-arts degree fields (art, anthropology, and religion) among that top ten. The rest of them are non-liberal-arts job-focused majors: exactly the sort of thing you claim colleges ought to be focusing on **more**. But apparently they lead the pack as some of the most useless majors for graduates today. (I note with amusement that one of these “ten most useless” fields, namely graphic design, is one of the subjects that the university campus in your OP is promoting as a curricular **replacement** for some traditional humanities majors! It just goes to show that trying to tailor educational programs narrowly to current trends in an eternally variable job market is ultimately a fool’s errand, even if the fools who tend to indulge in it like to think of themselves as hard-headed and practical.) Here’s [another recent and more in-depth look at some of the myths about higher education you’re assiduously promoting:](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/choosing-a-college-major.html) > [@](#): > > […] Even English or history graduates who make just above the median lifetime earnings for their major do pretty well when compared to typical graduates in business or a STEM field. > > Take the median lifetime earnings of business majors, the most popular undergraduate degree. The typical graduate earns $2.86 million over a lifetime. When you put business graduates side by side with those who graduated with what are considered low-paying majors, you’ll see that those who are slightly above the median salary in their fields are not that far behind the business grads. For example, an English major in the 60th percentile makes $2.76 million in a lifetime, a major in psychology $2.57 million and a history major $2.64 million. […] > > **Myth 4: Liberal arts majors are unemployable.** > > The liberal arts is a favorite target of politicians […] but the competencies that liberal arts majors emphasize — writing, synthesis, problem solving — are sought after by employers. A 2017 study by David J. Deming, an associate professor of education and economics at Harvard, found jobs requiring both the so-called soft skills and thinking skills have seen the largest growth in employment and pay in the last three decades. […] > > The long-held belief by parents and students that liberal arts graduates are unemployable ignores the reality of the modern economy, where jobs require a mix of skills not easily packaged in a college major, said George Anders, author of “You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education.” […] > > Majors tend to lag behind changes in the workplace. No wonder fewer than a third of college graduates work in jobs related to their majors. And picking one based on today’s in-demand jobs is risky, said Dr. Webber of Temple, especially if the occupation is threatened by automation. > > “I would argue against majoring in accounting,” he said, “or anything that a computer can be programmed to do.” Again, I recognize that all these discussions are skewed by the heavy burden of higher education debt in the modern American educational system, and I don’t blame students for being fearful of that prospect. We should definitely make higher education less of a financial ball and chain for the students who undertake it. But we won’t improve the situation by rehashing stale myths and uninformed prejudices about the alleged “worthlessness” of specific subjects in defiance of evidence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-universities-focus-more-on-programs-that-lead-to-specific-career-goals/811018.md?page=5)