<p><a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/bachelors/public-schools”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/bachelors/public-schools</a></p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m a BIG fan of Cal Poly. PayScale data however isn’t a very meaningful metric. You’d get virtually the same list if you ranked schools by the percentage of engineers in a graduating class. The only schools that buck that trend are the few elite schools (all private) that produce investment bankers and upper east coast lawyers.</p>
<p>So, the take home message is that engineers skew the data. Don’t expect to hit those marks with a liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>^^^“So, the take home message is that engineers skew the data. Don’t expect to hit those marks with a liberal arts degree.”</p>
<p>Actually, Liberal Arts grads do very well. Very well indeed.
<a href=“Best Liberal Arts Colleges | Payscale”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/all-bachelors/liberal-arts-schools</a></p>
<p>6 of the top 10 in your list have large engineering programs.</p>
<p>I’m not saying liberal arts degrees aren’t valuable, but if you take average starting and mid career salaries for engineers and science majors (yes, physics and math are liberal arts) versus history, social science and arts majors, the STEM folks tend to do better.</p>
<p>eyemgh, please look at the collum on the far right (STEM%). Of the top 6: 3 service academies, 2 Liberal arts, 1 STEM. Of the top ten: 5 Liberal arts, 4 service ac, 1 STEM.</p>
<p>Considering that service academy grads aren’t competing for private sector employment for 3 to 20 years (after gaining 3 - 20 year of upper level management experience) it’s no surprise they report higher earnings. </p>
<p>btw, Paysacle’s sampling data (cited in the OP and elsewhere) is highly suspect.</p>
<p>STEM accounts for 25% or more of the grads from 8 of the top ten. Number one on the list, Harvey Mudd, is classified as Liberal Arts, but 86% of their grads get degrees in STEM. As I mentioned, PayScale data is suspect for many reasons, not the least of which, it’s based on volunteer reporting. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how much all those engineering degrees may skew the data, but I do know this: My significant other and I graduated from Cal Poly in the same year. SO was a software engineering major and had a $100k+ job offer at a major tech company months before graduation. I graduated from the college of liberal arts, and while I was able to find a full-time job related to my major about six months after graduating, it pays a little more than a third of what my SO makes. My salary definitely isn’t bad for an entry level liberal arts graduate (and actually probably a few thousand higher than most entry level positions in my industry), but it’s nowhere near the salaries of most entry level engineers I know. It’s also about $5-10k less than what a lot of business majors I graduated with seem to be making at their first jobs.</p>
<p>25% STEM does not equal an “enigneering skew” or even a STEM focused college. 75% would be non-STEM (i.e. not Science, Not Technology, Not Engineering, Not Math) Last I checked Physics was science and Math was math. </p>
<p>Some of Physics and Math could be doing engineering jobs are not math or physics related. It’s not unheard of.</p>