<p>Re: [Unemployment</a> Varies by College Major, Study Finds - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Unemployment Varies by College Major, Study Finds”>Unemployment Varies by College Major, Study Finds)</p>
<p>Based on page 8 of the [report[/url</a>], it appears that the typical pay rates for recent graduates are lower after adjusting for CPI inflation than in 1983 (as an old college catalog listed recent graduates’ pay rates in a national (not school specific) survey back then).</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1267923-average-monthly-salary-graduates-1983-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1267923-average-monthly-salary-graduates-1983-a.html](<a href=“http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Unemployment.Final.pdf]report[/url”>http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Unemployment.Final.pdf)</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, cost of attending a university to earn a bachelor’s degree has more than doubled (after adjusting for CPI inflation) since then.</p>
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<p>As long as the supply-demand situation is such that Universities can turn away students who are qualified to attend, what incentive is there to keep tuition inflation in check? Positions need to start going unfilled before there’s any real change.</p>
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<p>I was thinking along the line of the duration of study, the nature of the discipline, and teaching methodology. Four years is a far better indicator than two years, where most students have just learned the basic vocabularies of the discipline. The goodies usually come in the more senior years.</p>
<p>Some disciplines require more intensive reasoning than others. I am not surprised math students show such impressive gains over four years. Sociology does well probably for an entirely different reason. The discipline is so broad (but not necessarily vigorous) that students are forced to constantly look for new data and explanations for a given phenomenon. The students that show the least gain seem to be in majors that require extensive learning of existing material or best practices, as much as all four years of it.</p>
<p>Why students in business gain so much more than those in economics? While business students have to take extensive pre-requisites in the first two years, they have more leeway in higher years to focus on open ended stuff such as policy (the sociology effect!). The use of case study approach in many courses, and the constant outside-the-box search for profit, I believe, are great mind stretchers as well.</p>
<p>This stuff is much more complex than we think.</p>
<p>Love to hear more from other posters.</p>