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Choose Major on the Basis of Interestby Dr. Chris Bell, UNCA Department of Economics Your article "Starting Salaries Going Up for Graduating Seniors" was interesting but incomplete. The point of obtaining a liberal arts education – even for those for whom enhancing their earnings potential is their only reason for attending college – is not to earn the highest possible starting salary. It is to enhance one’s lifetime earnings profile. Prospective employees with job-specific skills are often paid very well to start but fall behind the earnings of their more broadly-skilled competitors over time. A case in point: compare the starting salaries of graduates in my discipline, economics, with those of graduates in the more job-specific disciplines of accounting and marketing. According the latest data from the Princeton Review, accounting majors can expect starting salaries averaging about $35,000 in 2001, marketing majors $32,000 and economics majors $31,000. Doesn’t look good for economics majors, does it? Well, look again. In 1993 the National Science Foundation funded a survey of over 200,000 people who had graduated from college by the time of the 1990 U.S. census. Those interviewed were asked questions about things like their undergraduate major, occupation, sex and income. The interview data are summarized on a World Wide Web page created by Dr. Ken Chapman of the California State University Northridge (salaries by major and occupation). According to the NSF survey, female economics graduates between the ages 24-34 had a median 1993 income of $40,000 ($49,500 in 2001 dollars) and an average income of $48,296 ($59,700). Female accounting graduates in the same age range had a median 1993 income of $37,000 ($45,700) and an average income of $39,538 ($48,800). The gap between the earnings of the more broadly-educated economics majors and their more specifically-trained sisters continued to grow as women advanced in their careers, a fact that can be confirmed by a trip to Dr. Chapman’s web page (as can the fact that similar relationships hold for men). The point to all this? First, choose your major on the basis of your interest in the subject, not by looking at starting salaries. In addition to the fact that starting salaries are misleading indicators of future earnings potential, enthusiastic philosophy or accounting majors with many positive things to say about their undergraduate experiences will almost always be more attractive job candidates than bitter, unhappy economics majors. And second, don’t second guess your choice to attend UNCA: most broadly-trained college graduates do very well in life even if their starting salaries seem modest. This letter to the editor appeared in the Blue Banner in November, 1997. The numbers were updated May, 2001.
Economics Department Copyright © 2001-2007
[Chris Bell (email), Economics Department, UNC Asheville]. |
One University Heights
