<p>664..and I might argue that it's a lifetime of education. It's never too late!</p>
<p>dad'o'2, thanks for your post, because your concerns are the ones that lead to my original post.</p>
<p>A true life example --</p>
<p>I am a liberal arts grad (philosophy) who did graduate work (theology and German literature) before working in business.</p>
<p>My path into business: administrative assistant for a biotech company,-> gal Friday for a very small marketing research firm ->"analyst" for a somewhat larger marketing research firm (cold calling to try and come up with data for reports) -> assistant with a small amount of tech writing for a small tech writing firm -> tech writing, tech support, product management for a software company -> marketing assistant promoted to product management at Digital (servers) -> product management and product marketing at a software company eventually bought out by a large conglomerate -> part-time position in product marketing/market research at small software start up -> laid off and now stay-at-home mom.</p>
<p>It was a STRUGGLE to stay employed, and would have been MUCH easier if I had experience in software development or some kind of business degree.</p>
<p>At a minimum, subject matter expertise would have been helpful (for example, a nurse can cross over into medical billing/medical software, someone who has worked in retail knows alot about inventory management which can apply to business analyst jobs and so on.)</p>
<p>I was able to persevere because the software business was booming, and had not matured to the point where they required a technical background for the jobs I had (although those applying with a technical background were preferred).</p>
<p>"They get stuck in Iraq" - John</p>
<p>Here are some outcomes of fellow female liberal arts grads, class of '80:</p>
<p>Law school then big firm and government practice;</p>
<p>Business machine sales (Xerox);</p>
<p>Marketing for Disney;</p>
<p>Wharton school then international entertainment industry (television programming);</p>
<p>Banking;</p>
<p>Pilates instructor;</p>
<p>Book publishing then music CD production and sales;</p>
<p>Non-profit fundraising then sculptor and art gallery owner.</p>
<p>An interesting site to peruse is from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, at <a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm</a>.</p>
<p>This site lists occupations, and provides a detailed description of each, including educational requirements.</p>
<p>For example, here's what they have to say about insurance sales agents:</p>
<p>
[quote]
For insurance sales agent jobs, most companies and independent agencies prefer to hire college graduates—especially those who have majored in business or economics.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I know of several members of my parents and grandparents generation who raised a family and became homeowners through insurance sales.</p>
<p>At that time, these jobs were available to those with only a high school education.</p>
<p>In my searches, I also found a poster on a Kenyon Review blog who wondered why an English grad should expect his/her degree to be preparation for employment. Majoring in liberal arts, the writer felt, has an intrinsic value in and of itself.</p>
<p>All very fine and good, I say, but everyone needs to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.</p>
<p>I envision a scenario where a bright, intellectually curious kid goes off to college and has the time of his/her life studying classics, history, anthropology, whatever. S/he loves the reading, the discourse, the papers, the intellectual engagement.</p>
<p>Then, graduation looms and reality sets in. The college has done its job, providing an education. Now its up to the student to connect the dots and find employment.</p>
<p>A student who has embarked on college with some employment goal in mind has a headstart, and has spent college garnering coursework that will meet an employer's expectations. This student will have the buzzwords that pass through the resume reading software filters.</p>
<p>The student who has enjoyed pure intellectual challenge must shift gears in order to find something to do that pays. One of the biggest surprises may be that the skill set that rewards the student does not necessarily overlap with the qualities that are required to land a job. The smartest candidate is not necessarily the most successful.</p>
<p>food for thought.<br>
I know that money isn't everything.
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/</a></p>
<p>oops. This one's more recent.
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm</a></p>
<p>In another thread comparing the benefits of attending a "predtiege/expensive" vs a "good/cheap" college I posited that a very respected study determined that post graduate success was determined by the abilities of the student and not the name on the diploma.</p>
<p>Well guess what! I suspect that the same holds true for the LAC graduate vs say an engineering graduate. Yes, the engineering graduate will usually get a better job out of college. But the talents of an excellent LAC graduate student will soon be recognized by the people he/she associates with and it is likely that 10 years down the road any gap between the engineering student and the LAC student will have disappeared.</p>
<p>Success in life almost always depends on the tanlents and abilities of the individual and not the info scribbled on the diploma, be it the name of the college or the major(s) listed.</p>
<p>I agree with you originalong, when it comes to individual success. But statistically, there are lifetime earnings differentials, in the aggregate, among undergrad degrees.
Another statistic-
<a href="http://www.uwrf.edu/admissions/Degree_to_Income.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.uwrf.edu/admissions/Degree_to_Income.pdf</a></p>
<p>From doubleplay's last link, I learned that liberal arts grads can expect to earn $243,883 more over a lifetime as a result of their degree...</p>
<p>....four year degrees from many well respected LACs are rapidly approaching that sum....</p>
<p>fendrock-
more than... someone with a high school diploma. And an engineer can expect to make $497,930 more than someone with a hs diploma. I was addressing originalong's point:</p>
<p>"the engineering graduate will usually get a better job out of college. But the talents of an excellent LAC graduate student will soon be recognized by the people he/she associates with and it is likely that 10 years down the road any gap between the engineering student and the LAC student will have disappeared."</p>
<p>So the lifetime earning differential (according to this source) for an engineer is more than double than that of a LA degree. My point is not to diminish the value of a liberal arts degree, just as I wouldn't diminish the value of an education degree. Unfortunately, our economy, in terms of market value, does.</p>
<p>liberal arts grads are the ones going on to med school, law school, grad school.</p>
<p>I think the gist of the original post was, what is the job outlook for a graduate of liberal arts who does not go on to grad school/med school/law school.</p>
<p>Yeah, me too. If in a few years my D says, "Dad, I want to major in Art History or English or maybe History" I can say, "That's fine honey. I assume you planning to go to grad school, too. How are you going to pay for that?"</p>
<p>What amazes me is that so many are willing to take on an enormous debt to achieve a liberal arts degree from an expensive school. If you take that $30K per year and subtract taxes and other deductions (e.g., health insurance), that would leave less than $2000 per month. If you have an $800 a month payment for an $80,000 college loan, that leaves you so far under the poverty level, you'd better hope that Mom and Dad will let you back in your old bedroom.</p>
<p>j/k, of course. The students we encounter here on CC seem to be very aggressive with their educations and potential careers, so their luck might be better. BUT, on average, them's the facts.</p>
<p>doubleplay, the report you cite is interesting but if you go to the original US Census report referenced you will find that there is no breakdown between LAC, engineering, science majors etc. So who knows where this further breakdown "data" came from or how accurate it is. Here is the link to the study cited. <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-210.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-210.pdf</a></p>
<p>And even the hs/assoc degree/bachelor degree/advanced degree/professional degree data presented is synthetically extrapolated. Because of this, and if a LAC breakdown is published in some other document, this methodology would not be able to take into account a LAC graduate who was promoted into a management position later in her career and receive a pay boost far beyond what would be statistically predicted.</p>
<p>And of course there is always flaws in overly broad statistical data. I suspect that there might be a statistically signific difference between students majoring in anthropology at a private LAC vs anthropology majors at a typical public university. Both would have liberal arts degrees but aggregate career outcomes are likely going to be significantly different. Not because of the colleges themselves but because of the talents and abilities of their respective student bodies.</p>
<p>BTW, I am an engineering professor so I would like to believe the figures cited in your linked document.</p>
<p>Originalong, I agree it's kind of quick and dirty. </p>
<p>"Synthetic work-life earnings estimates are created by using the working population's 1-year annual earnings and summing their age-specific average earnings for people aged 25 to 64."</p>
<p>So this would suggest to me that they survey X number of people between the ages of 25 and 64 from all fields and backgrounds- a snapshot in time so to speak. Wouldn't that therefore take into account people who later in life are launched into stratospheric earnings; assuming it was a big enough and random enough sample, wouldn't they be included?</p>
<p>Edit/Add:
The self-selection idea (my interpretation of some of your earlier points) makes sense too. Most people don't go into, say, education because they want to make a lot of money. You hear many engineers, on the other hand, talk about which field is hot, where the money is, etc. Same with business. Maybe it's not so much that liberal arts doesn't "pay," but that many people going into liberal arts aren't chasing the almighty dollar, they're not doing it for the money, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>The liberal arts grad with marketable skills and the ability to learn quickly will do fine, no worse than any other major. The one that forgoes marketable skills will be the butt of an old joke; "Do you want fries with that?"</p>
<p>Alchemy, your definition of marketable skills and mine (I work in corporate HR and am responsible, both directly and indirectly for hiring 100's of new grads every year) may differ.</p>
<p>I'll take the Poli Sci major who wrote a senior thesis on globalization over the "business major" who doubled up on sports marketing classes any day of the week. Especially if this poli sci major is fluent in both English (i.e. can write and speak fluently without saying, "like y'now, like" about 12 times during a one hour interview) and another language. Frankly, I'll take the Rensaissance Studies major with language fluency-- even if the other language is Latin, over virtually every other "practical" major, with the exception of a BA in Econ from a top school if it was supplemented by a solid liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Most large corporations can teach finance, accounting, etc. and frankly, we spend millions on training anyway, so this way we get to train employees our way. What we can't teach (or at least have been unable to teach)is how to think critically, how to communicate; how to be sensitive to customers and colleagues in other parts of the world; how to solve a problem without an algorithm attached to it.</p>
<p>I have several departments who hire writers. You can't imagine how hard it is. Whether it's for PR, technical writing, speechwriting, internal communications, translating financial data into prose, taking news releases and adapting them for a website-- doesn't matter. It is very hard hiring skilled writers. We give an editing test for many entry level writing positions and the failure rate is huge-- and this is a test that back in the day, most kids who took Mrs. O'Leary's 7th grade composition/grammer class would have passed with ease.</p>
<p>So- I say, let's churn out more kids with liberal arts degrees. Anyone who wants to write for a living should take micro and macro and then if they're a good writer with decent team skills and a lot of intellectual curiousity-- they're good to go in my book. A writer who knows what the Federal Reserve Bank is.... and why it's important to the global economy???? That's a fast track college grad. Major in English, take a good Intro to econ class.</p>
<p>blossom, can you give us a few hints about the type of corporation for which you work?</p>
<p>Does anyone have any hard data on the majors hired straight out of college by businesses, ie, percentage with liberal arts degrees versus those with business or skills specific (computer science, engineering, etc.) degrees?</p>
<p>I suspect that the vast majority of entry-level jobs are at businesses that cannot afford to provide significant training to liberal arts grads.</p>