Reply to Photo essay -- living with debt in America

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[quote=Anonymous]Liberal arts majors aren't actually bad investments.

First, while engineering and computer science majors from liberal arts colleges both produce higher average salaries than social sciences and humanities majors from liberal arts colleges, all of these categories significantly outperform non-college graduates and people who graduated from community college and technical college. The fact that you might be able to make slightly more on average with a CS degree than an anthropology degree doesn't mean that they aren't both good investments.

Second, the sole purpose of a degree is not to make money. Several studies suggest that people who obtain a social studies or humanities degree are on average happier than people who obtain other degrees. Since the purpose of making money is primarily to be happy, prioritizing money over happiness seems shortsighted.

Third, the people who make the most money are individuals who get graduate degrees, and it is not at all clear that liberal arts majors are disadvantaged in graduate school admission. In fact, humanities majors are admitted to medical school at a HIGHER rate than science majors. Philosophy majors, who might be the brunt of the largest amount of "useless degree" jokes of all, have some of the highest rates of admission into top graduate programs.

Finally, liberal arts majors arguably provide a more portable skill. Some types of engineering, for example, are highly specialized. If the market for that type of engineer is strong, they have a great economic outlook. If the market shifts suddenly, they are in dire shape. An English major might have lower average earnings, but the odds of jobs suddenly disappearing for people who can read, write, and think effectively is close to nil, so the downside risk is lower, which is a relevant factor when you're about to go deep into debt.[/quote]

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