Hello,
I am thinking at getting a BSW at one of the top social work schools in the country, and then getting an MSW to become a medical social worker. Although I don’t have to worry about cost, I am worried about earning enough money to be comfortable. My second choice is their management major which is not ranked as well but still decently. I am terrible at math and all of my strengths are in the social sciences. If I did graduate with a Buisness degree, I am thinking of going into HR work. I assist with an HR manager part time and I like it but it seems like it would get boring over time. Which path should I choose? A BSW degree or Buisness degree? Thanks for the help 
Well, it depends on what you mean by comfortable.
Social workers, on average, earn $44,200 per year. Healthcare social workers earn a little more on average - $49,830. Getting even more narrow, social workers employed by hospitals make the most of any social workers - $56,290 per year. (All statistics from the Bureau of Labor Services’ Occupational Outlook Handbook.) 90 percent of social workers make between $27K and $72K a year, so chances are your annual salary for life will stay between about $35-40K (as a newer graduate) to about $60-70K (after many years of experience).
I currently make about $50,000 per year. You can live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle on $50K, particularly if you have a partner who makes about the same salary as you. I’m married but childless, with low debt in a low cost-of-living area. If we were to have children and stay at this income, I could see us maybe struggling some months but generally being fine - especially once I pay off my credit card and student loan debt. We wouldn’t be able to afford the biggest house on the block or the newest cars; our kids would be in public school and not private (although we’d probably do that anyway!); our savings would be modest, our kids probably wouldn’t go to fancy private universities, etc. But we could eat every night; we’d probably have cars; our kids could probably still do lessons and after-school sports if they wanted; we’d all have clothes and stuff; we could afford small luxuries, cheap trips, etc.
It’s hard to accurately predict, but I have a cousin raising two small children on about $40K a year, by herself in a medium CoL area, and she struggles some months but her kids have all of these things. (She has no debt.)
The BLS has two entries for HR - human resources specialists and human resources managers. Human resources specialists are the more entry-level/lower level workers; they average $55,640 a year, with 90 percent of them earning between $33K and $92K. Human resources managers (which are usually promoted HR specialists with 5-7+ years of experience) average $99,720 a year. The middle 90 percent of them make between $59K and $173K a year.
There are two things here: one, human resources specialists average more than social workers; and two, there’s potential for growth. The social worker entry includes all social workers, including master’s level ones (who I think make up the bulk of them). You’re going to hit a salary wall at some point. With HR specialists/managers, you can start out as a regular worker making decent pay and eventually get promoted into management making even more pay. There’s much more room to grow salary-wise. There’s also a lot of room to grow responsibility-wise, and HR is likely different in different places.
A social worker’s salary will allow you to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. An HR specialist’s salary is the same, but if you ascend the ranks you can push yourself into upper-middle-class with more…stuff, and more cushion.
Of course, I believe that there are other considerations in life besides salary. It’s got to be about what you enjoy. Both HR managers/specialists and social workers help people - they just do it in different contexts with different people, for different end goals. Also, you say that HR might get boring after a while, but social work is one of the highest burn-out fields. People get exhausted of seeing the poverty and misery that poor and disadvantaged people face in our country and just get fatigued on the job. I had a friend in college who was a BSW major and she said she heard that the average time to burn-out in SW was 5 years. I don’t know how true that is, but - I do know it’s true that it has psychological effects.
However, there are thriving people in both fields. It’s really all about your interests and skills vs. your desires for future. I’m not ashamed to admit that personally, I’m a bit materialistic and I like a good balance of decent salary potential and something I like to do, so although I also considered social work I selected a field that has higher salary potential but that I still envisioned myself enjoying (and I do enjoy it - I’m currently a postdoc, so hopefully $50K is the lowest I’ll make. LOL.) Others are less materialistic than me and choose to make lower salaries to really do their life’s work or to explore interesting avenues. For others, money is more important and they choose higher-paying careers, either out of love for the field or a desire to make that money.
So I can’t answer your question for you! I can say what I would do (I wouldn’t major in management, but if I was choosing between HR and social work I would choose HR). But only you can make the choice.
Thank you so much for your detailed response!
I an in the same exact boat as you are, however I’m probably much older than you! These are 2 majors that I am very interested in…actually I am more interested in SW, but at this point in my life, it is just not a practical choice for me. If you are right out of high school, and your heart takes you towards SW, I would say to do it. I wanted to do it out of HS as well, but my dad didn’t think it paid well and strongly suggested that I not do it. I have somewhat regretted it ever since, because by now, I could probably have earned my master’s and could be making at least decent money. That being said, I don’t think HR is a bad idea at all! You are still helping people, the job satisfaction rate seems to be MUCH higher than SW, and as the above poster said, the pay is better as well. I also do best in the social sciences, and HR seems like the most closely related field that is actually profitable!
Sounds like you could go for the MSW and minor in management as an underground with an eye to entering management eventually. Maybe even going for further education in health care or nonprofit management. If you work for a university affiliated hospital as LCSW, could you get education benefits that would fund a slow march toward an MBA?
BTW, you might eventually move from med SW into EAP service then EAP management, which is an HR function. Ditto for work/life balance directors for large employers.
Assume you need to know and do management, no matter what job you’re in,
I would LOVE certain aspects of SW. However, I would only want to help people that WANT help…not the ones who were court ordered to get help. 2 major problems with SW are the pay and the schooling options. We may be moving in the next 2 years, so whatever degree I start here has to be able to transfer to a differents school. At this point in my life, I have to be able to earn back what I put into it before I retire. I hear so many horrible stories about SW. They say how stressful it is and how the pay is horrendous. I think if it’s something I would have started years ago, it would be ok, because I would have gotten a chance to work my way up a bit by now.