Will that college degree pay off? Some actual numbers

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I don’t malign accounting or finance. I find it curious that a kid who graduated with a degree in history from- I dunno- Dartmouth- finds the idea of learning some basic financial skills so difficult. Dartmouth invented Bridges:
https://bridge.tuck.dartmouth.edu/

which is specifically designed to teach humanities and STEM majors the basic business (aka finance, etc) skills that are helpful in getting a corporate job. It is not the only way of course- but it’s packaged as a One Stop Shopping program.

What y’all are saying is that if you aren’t rich and go to an “elite” U you are doomed to fold sweaters at the Gap for your entire career unless you study CS or engineering? And that you’d have been better off at random state U studying accounting, right?

Well of course- if you want to become an accountant, makes sense to go to a college where you can do that. Don’t go to Brown to become a nurse, don’t go to Harvard to study agronomy. This is pretty obvious.

What isn’t obvious is why smart college grads can’t take their research and analytical skills and figure out what’s required to get a better job than the one they have. Even if they aren’t engineers or computer scientists. You can’t get an entry level role which puts you on a fast track to management (if that’s what you want) with your current skills? So upskill. That’s what coal miners do when the coal industry folds shop in West Virginia. That’s what steel workers do when the plant closes. They upskill.

If 50 year olds with a high school diploma can figure it out, so can the current generation of college grads with the “elite” U pedigree. And if you want your college experience to be about social mobility, it ain’t too late. That’s what networking with alums is all about. Decide what you want to do- brand management at a company making socially responsible baby products. Public Affairs and lobbying for more funding for Pre-K. Working for an entrepreneurial ed-tech company figuring out how to keep middle school boys reading and writing. Grant management for a large foundation which is on the verge of eliminating malaria. Developing educational materials for clinical trials so that patients (and their families) are not surprised when the yukky side effects kick in. Or accounting if that’s what you want to do.

But do some research, find the hundreds of alums from your college working in your desired industry or job, and set up time to talk to them. This ain’t rocket science. I guarantee your senior thesis (whatever the topic was) was infinitely harder and required more research.

If you aren’t networking with the alumni base from your college, you really are missing the “value add” of your post-college experience.

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As someone who HATES networking I see a little clearer the value of my engineering degrees. I didn’t have to do much networking in my life. I love people (and would like to think they love me back) but I’m allergic to extracting personal value from human interactions. It feels slimy to me. Before people jump down my throat, this is just the way I’m wired and have always admired those with extensive personal and social networks. I just can’t do it. Thankfully I have technical skills and can do research, publish papers and build community within my lab. I don’t think I would qualify as a high earner though and never aspired to be one.

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On the college visits I did a few years ago, I always wondered why so few questions were related to academics. Is Greek life so important? Or athletics? Or even study-abroad program? These are supposedly elite colleges. So I’m not surprised that some of their students didn’t do as well as they had hoped, especially when inflated grades coupled with flexible curricula had alleviated the need to exert themselves.

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Any state school grad would have far fewer opportunities to contact alumni? Or join career related clubs? Or do internships? Many state schools students would have more opportunities than HYPS grads to do all of these activities, partially fueled by a larger student body and larger number of alumni working at area companies.

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Exactly.

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Bloomington - you’re missing the point and your attitude is leading you to the self fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Many a social science and humanities person lands a job. It’s not going to be accounting - because you need an accounting degree. While some on here argue you can and you are at Ivy, it’s likely not going to be a finance/I-banking job. It’s not going to be an engineering job.

It may be a trainee job - like at Enterprise Rent A Car - or to use my industry - all auto manufacturers from Toyota to BMW to you name it - have regional offices and in those offices they have jobs like incentive planning, marketing (which is working with an agency) or distribution - and they’ll take any degree. It may be a claims adjuster for an insurance company.

Going to a school or having a major doesn’t guarantee success.

The ones who are successful hang out in and network with the placement office. They sign up for on campus interviews. They go to presentations - even virtual ones - because that’s who the companies will choose to interview - those who spent time.

They reach out to alumni. They find jobs on indeed.

Everyone has the same opportunity to participate - although some may be in a more identifiable position - i.e teaching, engineering, CS, etc.

But here’s the thing - you’re a junior - you’ve come far. You need to finish. You need to think positively. You need to take advantage of opportunities you have instead of trashing your career office. You’ll get out - even if it’s working at Starbucks - you’ll learn, you’ll earn and if you then want to continue schooling in something you deem more employable, you’ll have that chance, etc.

btw - accounting is a great major. To me, it’d be boring as heck but with all the government regulations around financial laws, it’s a near bulletproof major.

Keep your head up - not down - and push forward instead of insulting past challenges.

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Any state school graduate would likely have a much less well funded careers office, and advisers and professors who have more students to deal with and less time for each. Large classes can also make it harder to establish relationships with well known professors, especially if your essays are graded by a TA. Not to mention fewer friends with family connections you can leverage.

And alumni engagement with current students differs significantly by school, but is generally higher at elite schools. Isn’t that one of the key marketing points for many LACs?

But I do agree that your typical state school student doesn’t expect to have a great career handed to them on a plate and knows they will have to do the internships, clubs and searching for opportunities themselves.

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The two schools that bring the most companies to campus and have extremely well funded career service offices are Georgia Tech and Purdue. Both state schools.

And my D knows a number of profs on a first name basis

Lots of inaccuracies about state schools.

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And Alabama is rated highest for internships in the SEC - however that’s determined - a grouping that including Vandy and highly ranked UF.

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The 3 things mentioned in the post you quoted and replied to were as follows. None of the above is good evidence of all state school grads having far fewer opportunities than HYPS grads to do these 3 things.

  1. Contact alumni
  2. Join career related clubs
  3. Do internships

The comment that I replied to said all state school grads have far few opportunities than HYPS grads for “Contacting alumni and asking for informational interviews.” State schools often have a huge number of alumni working at in region companies, where grads are particularly likely to apply and work. These alumni networks can be quite strong, and there are often other benefits besides just direct alumni connections.

I’ll give an example. I live and work in the San Diego area. The largest private employer in San Diego is Qualcomm. According to LinkedIn, the colleges with the largest number of alumni working at Qualcomm SD are as follows. If I search for managers, engineers, interns, or any other keyword in job title, the list is similar. Regardless of position, there are a huge number of alumni from the San Diego schools UCSD and SDSU working at the largest SD private employer – Qualcomm SD.

Colleges with Most Qualcomm SD Alumni on LinkedIn

  1. UCSD – 949
  2. SDSU – 838
  3. USC – 358
  4. Arizona State – 230
  5. UCLA – 193

However, the connections and benefits go further than just having hundreds of alumni working at the company and a large number of potential alumni contacts . UCSD and Qualcomm are located practically within walking distance of one another; Qualcomm was founded by a former UCSD professor (the UCSD school of engineering is named after him); UCSD also has professors with unique connections at Qualcomm, such as consulting and past employment, has special opportunities for UCSD students to get Qualcomm mentors; UCSD classes I have taken emphasize Qualcomm-tech and Qualcomm way of doing things; etc. I’m sure persons involve in Qualcomm hiring are also aware of things like UCSD/SDSU grads being more likely to be enthusiastic about living in the SD area and taking a job if offered than out of region kids, generally having a lower recruiting cost due to less travel + large number of potential hires, etc. If you want to work at Qualcomm or in the SD area in general, attending UCSD is likely to be advantageous to that goal, partially because of the strong alumni network and connections. I expect many other state schools have similar relationships with area companies.

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My kids are at state schools. I’m not saying they don’t have opportunities, but they have had to be proactive to create them. And they have seen first hand some of the doors that have been opened for students at elite privates (for example in prestigious internships) and the amount of support that is available to them. That’s why I have a hard time with any student at an Ivy complaining about a lack of job opportunities.

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I am concerned you seem to be so jaded at your young age. I encourage you to seek some help from your career center if you are unhappy with your major and your belief in its poor prospects. I have so many successful (pay the bills easily and enjoy what they do) humanities-major friends, and other posters have given you their expertise that they do indeed hire humanities majors. It is a shame you do not see it in your circle, but hopefully you will in time see success in whatever you choose to do.

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Since we seem to be focused on - if you have a certain degree, you are eliminated from life (wrong) and if you have the right degree your gauranteed success (also wrong) - and since everyone looks at the exceptions and not the rules - here’s a few examples:

Andy Jassey, CEO of Amazon (just replaced Jeff Bezon) - degree in Govt with Harvard MBA…but let’s say he wasn’t getting into Harvard MBA if he didn’t do well out of undergrad.

Lloyd Blankfein - CEO of Goldman Sachs - History. Bryan Moynihan - Bank of America - History. Anthem CEO Gail Boudreau - Psych and Soc, Nike’s Mark Parker and Target’s Brian Cornell - Poli Sci.

Howard Schultz, Founder of Starbucks graduated in communications from a directional…Northern Michigan.

Andrea Jung, Avon, English LIt,

Michael Eisner, long time Disney CEO - English Lit and Theatre

Carly Fiorina, HP, Senate and Presidential Candidate, Medieval History and Philosophy

John Mackey, Whole Foods Founder, Religion and Philosophy

Susan Wojciki You Tube - Hisory and English Lit

Steve Ellis, Chipotle - Art History

Oprah - Speech

The point is - people create their paths. Yes, there’s more econ, engineering, and business majors - but do you think these folks said - my degree is wrong - I’ll have to work at Wal Mart.

And btw - what can you do with your degree. Work in a grocery store or Target, etc. You think - that’s beneath you. Yet they have managers, district managers, regional VPs - all making 6 figures.

I met with a car sales guy today - he’s lapping me - $350K. I have another guy I call on made $50K each the last two months - and that’s with little inventory. Dealership general managers make $200K - $2 million depending on the store and brand.

How bout managing a restaurant - perhaps someone waits tables, tends bar and next thing their name is on the door at Outback.

Or how bout government - or get involved with admissions and become a counselor after school. Or get a job or internship with housing - so you can work in housing later. There’s so many gazillions of job types out there you’ve never heard of and there will continue to have them. Tesla does not only hire engineers and the MOMA doesn’t only hire art history majors.

But it doesn’t just happen because you say - I’m Ivy. . It requires hard work, persistence, good timing and luck…which btw, luck is often manufactured due to the previous things I mentioned.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint. It has ups and downs, successes and failures. But if your mindset is right, you’ll have more successes than failures (or as I like to say - opportunities to improve).

One other thing - the first job you need to excel is as a sales person.

You’ve already done so - you’ve gotten into two ivy leagues.

but now you have to sell yourself to an employer. Some may care that you are Ivy. Some many not care.

I will say this - my son, after sophomore, asn engineer at Bama applied to hundreds of jobs, had 10 or 12 interviews and thank goodness landed one (all he needed).

Already had two offers this year - nice and early - and is still getting calls for interviews.

So that first step is hard.

But once you have that experience on your resume - it gets easier from there.

OK - I’m done for now !!

After you look back in 30 years and realize, yes, I did make it happen - I built upon what I’ve done…then you can worry about not being one of the 50-85%, depending on the study, who don’t enjoy their jobs :slight_smile: but that’s for later.

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Sometimes the grass can look greener on the other side of the fence. Ivies show a similar type of pattern to the other colleges listed in this thread. For example, the Ivy with the largest sample size of grads is Cornell. A summary of CollegeScorecard reported early career earnings by major at Cornell is below. It does not suggest humanities majors within the CollegeScorecard sample (mostly kids who received federal FA and are not full pays) are exceptions to the national trend discussed in this thread, even though they are generally employed.

This sample is 2 years out. It’s certainly possible that the kids with lower early career salaries are perfectly satisfied with their job, and many are pivoting towards a long term career goal that will be achieved later on without further degrees. However, I also believe there are also some Ivy grads who are not satisfied with their job opportunities soon after graduating.

CollegeScorecard Earnings; Cornell
Computer Science – $122k
Electrical Engineering – $92k
Mathematics – $91k
Mechanical Engineering – $75k
Physics – $75k
Economics – $70k
…
Psychology – $45k
Philosophy – $37k
History – $33k
English – $32k
Biology – $28k

Anecdotally I attended a HYPS college, but didn’t personally know many humanities majors. As I noted earlier in the thread, the college I attended has a huge number of CS majors and few humanities majors. I did personally know more than my share of bio and hum bio majors, the vast majority of which were planning on med school. Almost all were accepted to med school and/or pursued further degrees, in some cases PhDs outside of the biology field (hum bio majors). However, among the small minority of kids who were not accepted to med school and did not pursue graduate degrees, early career jobs were typically in the underemployment group. For example, I know one bio major who worked as a salesperson in a mall-type jewelry store for a few years after graduating and seemed quite unhappy with her work. She eventually decided to do a post-bacc and apply to med school again. I didn’t hear back about whether she was accepted or not.

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This is an important point and the opposite can be true - you can make a boatload as well and be miserable. Hence, 50-85% - depending on the study, are unhappy.

We all are measuring success, it appears, with earnings.

And in most cases that’s probably true - we all typically work so we can pay for necessities, save for the future, etc.

But imagine teachers - in some states, they are making $60-70K with 20 years experience - but they LOVE what they do and they help to create these future geniuses.

Or people that work in hospitality - horribly paying but they love what they do.

Yet you have people working at Goldman Sachs, right out of college, already complaining to management that they had to work too hard.

So your statement related to making less but being happy is reasonable and likely even common…as is the opposite.

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I agree with you 100% about the incorrect information floating around CC regarding state schools. I won’t go into detail because I will stray too far off topic.

Two of my D’s friends were sociology majors and were offered jobs before senior year ended.

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Kids at Ivies need to hustle too.

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There is an old saying “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink”. I think for most students it’s more like “we have have water, we won’t lead you there and if you find it drink if you want”. Opportunities are there at most universities, admittedly some have more than others. If you are a good student, proactive, communicate well and pursue the opportunities you find you are much more likely to be successful in finding a career than if you show up for class and just attempt a few interviews and put your application on “Indeed”. If you haven’t networked while you are in college you are probably behind in the game.

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Something I keep seeing here is that this student who is a humanities major went on to law etc. That is a different kettle of fish. There are a lot of professional degrees that don’t really require specific undergraduate degrees. In my opinion if that is your goal then it is perfectly acceptable to study what interests you (so long as you understand the required prerequisites) then move on to your professional degree.

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Your S applied for over one hundred jobs? I’m glad your S landed a job but I don’t know if that’s good advice. How can one apply well to over 100 jobs? Targeted research regarding where you want to apply needs to be done, contacts need to be made, well-researched cover letters need to be written (or emails that introduce yourself to alums who work at the company). The day of sending a blanket 100 resumes out seems to be over. That’s just not usually very effective.

I bet every single college has someone in their career office who can teach students how to research and how to use Linked In. Many schools also have special Linked In “pages” that are used by alumni of the school who are looking to hire kids from their alma mater.

Sure, some majors like engineering or consulting benefit from companies coming to their schools to recruit but that’s pretty old school and not usually helpful for the more liberal arts type majors. Students need to become comfortable with how to do a successful job search. Many colleges now have sophomore boot camps that teach the students all about networking.

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