It would be exceptional amongst average students, but there’s no suggestion that this person is average. The more talented (and hard working, which is necessary but not sufficient) a student is, the easier it is to be one of those “exceptions” where your major doesn’t matter that much.
If your kid is the next Pete Buttigieg or Nate Silver then there’s really no need for them to study STEM unless they want to. If they win a Rhodes scholarship then you certainly don’t need to worry too much about whether they’ll be able to find a great job.
A good example is a friend of my S, who is lower middle class with zero family connections, and studying social sciences, but has a 4.0 GPA from a T20 and is the most intuitive and persuasive sales person I’ve ever seen. And talented enough to teach herself what “web services” are when she needed to know. So she has now got a job in tech sales for a FAANG company at $120K base when she graduates next spring after being their top intern last summer.
I know a good amount of people who fit this description. Unless the social science they’re studying happens to be Econ, most of them are doing nowhere near as good as the example you gave. Don’t forget how big of a role luck played in this person’s success.
Luck had little to do with it, unless you count the luck to be born with the brains and personality to succeed in this sort of role. Most people are doing nowhere near this well because they don’t have the same level of talent. And no, she’s not done economics, but she did rise straight to the top of whatever she set her mind to, including her sorority. Think Elle Woods without the dog
Say your kid won a Rhodes scholarship. Is that just luck, or the result of enormous talent and drive? Of course there’s randomness in any interview process, but you don’t get to a position where you can win those glittering prizes by simply being lucky, and you certainly don’t need to study STEM in college. A student in the top 1% of a T20 college (or the top 0.1% of a T100 college) is going to have plenty of opportunities open to them to succeed in life. They just need to take them.
Sales jobs can pay really well for those who have the aptitude and you don’t have to be a .1% student at a T100 to find success there. Anecdotally, my husband is in a sales adjacent role at a bank and makes much, much more than the salary you quoted above. He attended a very mediocre directional public school and was far from a top student - what he had was drive and outstanding personal skills. For what it is worth he makes a lot more than our STEM friends (most of whom went to MIT). He didn’t come from a connected family either (single teacher mom).
Yes I agree. My point is that for the most talented students (and that doesn’t have to be just academic talent), it really doesn’t matter very much what they study. And serendipity will give them plenty of opportunities for a great career.
Here’s an example of someone I know a little through my work. Rhodes (and Truman) scholar, PhD in string theory (so absolutely not a “practical” STEM degree). But most people would say he’s the smartest guy they’ve ever met, and it was clear he was destined for enormous success right from the start: DR. WILL ROPER > Air Force > Biography Display
Scary smart! Truly I don’t disagree that globally STEM majors make more money. I just object to the idea that non-STEM majors have a future of penury. Most college graduates I know are reasonably successful regardless of their major. By that I mean, self sustaining and able to have a decent quality of life. Are all of them upper middle class/wealthy - no, but you don’t need that to be happy. Conversely, I have two family members that never finished college (one is working on it now, part-time) and they are really just getting by. If you aren’t in a trade or without some specific skill, it is very hard to make a living without a college education. We are at a time in history where unskilled labor has very little value (and its value is decreasing yearly) which makes skills acquisition an absolute must.
I think that one influencing factor influencing the career trajectory of students is just how “general” their education was. Many STEM graduates benefit simply because their skills can be (and are) tested by any employer. Any engineer-type student is aware of the testing requirements of FANG type employers - you have to get past technical tests before you ever sit for a behavioral interview. After that, your judged expertise will determine what type of group may end up in from research to development to testing and maintenance. I think it’s probably harder to interview for other type of positions (sales, etc) because there is no real technical test that can be applied. What’s left? Parental influence, college reputation, past internships?
I think for non-technical jobs (and I’m talking about getting your first job - after that it is really about experience as opposed to major or where you went to school) it is a combination of things - personal traits (including being a strong interviewer), connections - including having some internships under your belt, flexibility (willingness to relocate or take a “lesser” job to get in the door) and to a certain extent, college reputation (this declines in importance over time).
The previously linked studies and salary surveys suggest the opposite. For example, the previously linked Webber study found that regardless of major or education level, students with higher ability (as measured by AFTQ score) averaged higher earnings than students with lower ability. However, when you controlled for AFTQ score, there was a similar degree of penalty in average income for arts/humanities majors across all AFTQ score ranges. For example Arts/Humanities majors with highest AFTQ score had roughly similar average lifetime earnings to STEM majors with lowest AFTQ score. There did not appear to be little difference in earnings across different majors for high ability kids.
At colleges like Yale, nearly everyone is very talented. However, the previously linked salary survey still showed huge differences in average and median income by major among Yale Kids. Arts/Humanities majors typically had relatively low early career salaries and Yale being the most common employer. While certain other majors had ~double the early career salaries, with Google or Goldman Sachs being the most common employers. Salary surveys of highly selective college grads that are have been working for 10+ years show the same pattern – average earnings are highly variable based on major among kids with high ability.
Note that I said “average” earnings. There is a large variation, with many exceptions. I think it is more accurate to say that there are some higher salary positions for which college major is often critical in obtaining the position, and some with major is less influential. An example of the former is software engineering. Most higher salary software engineering positions I have seen limit to a specific group of majors in the job listing. And among the ones that don’t specify college major in the listing, I expect nearly all have technical questions that would require a good amount of CS knowledge to pass, and would also compare applicant’s CS ability to other applicants who majored in CS. I expect no high salary employer is going to give a new grad English major who doesn’t know much about CS a shot at a SW engineering position because he/she seems like a bright and talented kid.
However, there are also positions that do not have a strong dependence on major. An example is a MD. While most students who become MDs major in biology due to overlap in pre-med requirements and interests, you don’t have to. Med school admissions are unlikely to apply a significant penalty for being an English, classics, or art major. A similar statement could be said about law. You mentioned sales. There are indeed some many high salary sales positions, and sales positions often do not have a strong dependence on major. I phrase it like that because college major can be influential for getting first sales job at some higher paying employers, but it’s rarely a blocker like a non-CS trying to go in to software engineering. Once you get the job, it’s my understanding that sales salary is highly variable based on performance history. With great performance, salary can be quite high, but most do not have great performance.
But as you say that survey is about averages and medians. There are 1400 Yale graduates each year, but only 3 won Rhodes scholarships last year. I don’t think you can extrapolate from the average Yale outcome to the opportunities for the top 1% student there. Now maybe those winners plan to take low paid jobs in social activism or policy (https://news.yale.edu/2020/11/24/three-yalies-win-rhodes-scholarships) but they will also have plenty of high paying opportunities (eg my understanding is that a position at McKinsey is pretty much there for the taking: “We are the largest employers of Rhodes scholars and Marshall scholars on the planet, outside of the United States government” per How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class - The Atlantic) if they want them.
Rhodes scholars are such an extreme outlier that it isn’t particularly relevant to the discussion. If you compared to the top 1% of students in tech at HtYPS type colleges to the the top 1% of students arts/humanities, my guess is the tech kids would have a much higher median career earnings than the arts/ humanities kids. However, there are no specific numbers for this comparison available, so it’s just a matter of guessing. Yes, Rhodes scholars have opportunities for higher salaries, but top kids in tech also often have very high earnings. For example, a small portion of tech kids usually form or get in early on successful tech startups, with stock options worth many millions. Like Rhodes scholars, these kids are an extreme outlier and not especially relevant to the discussion.
Except that none of those extreme outliers needs to worry that their degree won’t pay off or that they will struggle to find a job. The more talented they are, the less important it is to focus on average outcomes (even the averages at an elite school).
If they want to go into social activism, then it will be a choice to opt for a low paying career not something they are forced into. And it would actually be a great shame if all the most talented members of society felt they were obligated to major in STEM or work in tech.
How do you really measure success? For example, 15+ years ago I applied for a job that would have been a significant pay increases (someplace close to 15%) but would have required more travel and longer hours. I turned it down so that I could keep following my passion for coaching youth sports. I have been financially more successful but I would definitely have been less happy.
Not everyone wants a STEM career and not everyone wants IB.
My D and SIL are good examples. She is a teacher and he works as a historical interpreter. Until recently, he had a couple of part-time gigs at different locations strung together (along with a freelance writing gig). He just go promoted to one of the few full-time positions at one of the sites. Neither career with make them rich but they both love what they do and they are certainly are more than just getting by.
Most students at “elite schools” with open major enrollment don’t seem to agree with you. At the most highly selective colleges with an especially high concentration of students with outstanding ability/talent, the 2 most popular majors are usually CS and econ, with very few pursuing majors associated with a lower median salary. In general, as the concentration of top ability/talent kids at the open major enrollment college increases, the portion of students choosing to pursue majors associated with a higher median salary also increases.
Some “elite” colleges have added special programs to address this issue of an increasingly large portion of students choosing majors associated with a higher salary and few students choosing majors associated with a lower salary. For example, Stanford used to have a CS + X program. CS + X combined a CS major with a humanities majors, such as English or classics, integrating content between the two in a way that reduces the number classes required for each major. For example, CS + English might have a track that emphasizes computing literary analysis. The Stanford professor of English who initially ran the program said:
“We’re seeing students who want to balance their academic passions with pragmatic considerations about their career development,"
The idea was students who are passionate about humanities or other typically less lucrative fields could pursue their passion, but still have a more lucrative CS degree for assistance with work/career after graduation… perhaps getting unique job offers that included the humanities aspect. I used past tense because the CS + X program wasn’t popular with students, so it was recently terminated. Rather than do a full humanities major, students instead seemed to prefer majoring in CS and taking electives in their humanities interest, sometimes doing a humanities minor, or more rarely a double major.
Stanford’s current major enrollment is as follows, listed from high to low.
1 . Computer Science - 622
2. Economics – 188
3. Human Biology – 181
4. Engineering – 163
5. MS & Engineering – 147
6. Mathematics – 127
7. Symbolic Systems – 118
8. Biology --113
9. Political Science – 101
10. Psychology – 98
11. Mechanical Engineering – 94 (tie)
11. Science, Tech, and Society – 94 (tie).
In the sentence before the one you quoted, I mentioned that most pre-med kids choose a biology major due to an overlap between pre-med requirements and interests. However, satisfying the pre-med requirements does not “almost qualify one to be a science major.” The pre-med requirements are primarily intro underclassman courses. Pre-med requirements often cover the bulk of basic foundation requirements for a biology major, but they do not cover the more advanced depth/specialty requirements.
Continuing with the Stanford example, some specific numbers are below. A Stanford degree requires 180 units, so both a biology and English major should leave plenty of room for electives beyond the major requirements and pre-med requirements.
Stanford Biology Major – Requires 88-102 units as part of major requirements, Requires ~30-35 units beyond pre-med requirements
Stanford English Major – Requires 68-70 units as part of major requirements, Requires 53-55 units beyond pre-med requirements
To me, it seems like “almost” is appropriate. Medical schools admissions look more favorably if one has taken a few more upper division science classes. Funny you use that example, I am a Stanford biology major and my husband is a physician.
Indeed they do, as exemplified by your comment on the other thread that “no STEM or law rules out the vast majority of high-paying careers. It’s great that your kid will have no undergrad debt, as her choice of study necessitates that she will have to live very frugally for many, many years.”
