Are majors in the liberal arts unprofitable? Are degrees in the fine and performing arts a waste of time and resources? Is going to college for computer science now impractical due to rising unemployment rates? Should we all just become plumbers?
Current and near-future college students face a great deal of stress. The gravity of adult life, growing financial responsibilities, development of self-identity, and, for some, one’s first experience living alone—each demands compounds on the other, making college arguably one of the most disorienting experiences in a person’s lifetime.
Some even enter college without clear direction, having been thrust into the college pipeline due in large part to the perception that college is the “logical next step.” Hence, the advent of college majors such as the bachelor’s in general studies.
For those who have a specific passion they wish to pursue, discourse on whether the outcomes of their choice of major will be worth their time and money compounds this stress. There is nothing better than mixing finals with existential doubt.
Post-graduation outcomes of pursuing particular college majors—from both a financial and an employability perspective—are growing extraordinarily multifaceted, adding nuance to the discussion of college degree profitability. An apparent disparity between return on investment (ROI) and post-graduation unemployment statistics is surfacing, making it increasingly difficult to determine the best course of action for students to take.
In her recent Minding the Campus (MTC) article, “If You Want to Be a Creative, Don’t Go to College,” Alyza Harris examines the return on investment (ROI) of college majors, focusing on creative majors like the fine and performing arts. Using statistics from the Education Data Initiative, she dives into disparities seen between the average cost of obtaining a degree and the ability of a student to profit from their educational investment.
She draws from these statistics that traditionally profitable degrees, such as engineering and business, provide the greatest monetary yield, while degrees in humanities and fine arts have ROIs in the negative numbers. In other words, individuals who pursue negative ROI degrees end up with more financial loss than gain. Harris ultimately concludes that aspiring creatives may be better off bypassing college entirely and instead focusing on building portfolios, gaining experience, and networking within their industries. Her article offers a sobering analysis of the financial risks tied to creative majors and raises real questions about whether college is still the best path for students pursuing those careers.
But strangely enough, current unemployment trends among bachelor’s degree graduates appear to tell a different story than the ROI statistics she offered. In a previous article I wrote for MTC, I examined the unexpectedly high unemployment rate among computer science graduates. But it turns out that computer science is not the only major with surprising unemployment statistics.
In an article I recently stumbled across on CNBC, Jessica Dickler shares labor market trend statistics for recent graduates derived from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In an unexpected plot twist, philosophy majors at an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent had a lower unemployment rate than economics majors at a rate of 4.9 percent. Moreover, art history had an unemployment rate of 3.0 percent while finance had a slightly higher rate at 3.7 percent. And computer science sits at a whopping 6.1 percent.
Furthermore, Dickler’s article suggests that humanities degrees are increasing in demand due to, astonishingly, artificial intelligence. Apparently, humanities degrees will be essential for soft skill development and creativity in the field of tech.
Confounding.
What is a student to do with this kind of contradictory information?
There is nuance to consider when looking at these statistics. Both ROI values and unemployment rates can theoretically be altered. The value of a college degree is far more conditional than is commonly discussed, and in many cases, strategic choices can make or break its return.
[RELATED: WATCH: Credentialism’s Toll on American Prosperity]
Return on Investment (ROI)
What is not often considered is how unrepresentative of broader trends distinct statistical values can be. Average ROI statistics are based on the average total cost of attending a university, but mean values do not reflect outliers. Hello box and whisker plots.
Regarding tuition, fees, and other expenses, community colleges have a significantly lower cost, while public universities sit in the middle, and private universities require the highest investment. Therefore, attending a community college will lower the overall rate of investment, making it significantly more accessible and less risky to obtain a degree with a lower starting salary.
But there is more.
Individuals who choose to attend a public or private university may choose to attend one in their hometown. This allows them to live at home, thereby eliminating the room and board factor. Furthermore, scholarships can significantly reduce university costs.
For example, in the state of Florida, academic scholarships are given to high school seniors based on meeting certain requirements, such as GPA, standardized test scores, and volunteer hours. Known as the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship, the program offers tiered scholarship money to Florida residents based on merit, regardless of need. The highest tier of the scholarship offers students 100 percent funding for tuition and fees to a public university and can also be used to pay part of the tuition for a private university.
Of course, however, there is a caveat. The student must choose to attend college in the state of Florida. Therefore, individuals who earn this scholarship and have dreams of attending Harvard or UCLA cannot apply for this scholarship.
Other states, such as Georgia, Texas, California, Tennessee, and others, offer similar merit-based scholarships. Resembling the Bright Futures Scholarship, these programs also require a combination of GPA and standardized test score minimums for students to receive full or partial funding for in-state colleges.
And then, of course, there are university-specific and department-specific scholarships, Pell Grants for individuals with financial need, third-party scholarships—the list goes on.
The previously discussed elements can significantly alter the individual monetary expense for attending college; however, ROI values are dependent not only on total university costs but also on the student’s decision to cover these costs with loans.
It often appears that everyone and their brother who attends college pays all expenses with a loan, but making this assumption about all students is a bit narrow-minded. Disregarding individuals from wealth, some students are lucky enough to have saved some money in their bank accounts before college to cover partial amounts of their costs. Furthermore, others were blessed to have parents who created a prepaid college fund, which serves as an additional source of college funding.
With smart planning, students can significantly skyrocket their overall ROI. That music degree doesn’t look quite so financially irresponsible when the student chooses to attend a public university while living at home using their full-ride tuition coverage from their Florida Bright Futures scholarship.
However, this does not come without its sacrifices. Depending on a student’s financial situation, they may be forced to choose a less stereotypically prestigious college—such as community college—remain living at home with parents instead of experiencing dorm life, and/or forgo free time during their teen years in favor of work or achieving high grades.
Ultimately, though, it is clear ROI is not just a one-size-fits-all number associated with a degree—it’s the product of multiple decisions, many of which are in the student’s control.
[RELATED: What Good Are the Liberal Arts? Ask a Scientist.]
Unemployment Rates
Majors that prepare students for a high overall starting salary are always preferred—until oversaturation and high unemployment statistics upend the apple cart. While students have less influence over unemployment trends than ROI, they can still strategically position themselves to more easily dodge higher unemployment rates. But this takes careful planning, guidance, and commitment.
In my article on computer science unemployment rates, I focused on the importance of acquiring essential skills to combat the staggeringly high unemployment statistics. Gaining applied skills through internships, part-time jobs, volunteer work, and other hands-on experiences—known collectively as experiential learning—is critical to improving employability.
These types of resume-building opportunities are essential to making a student stand out in their field and ultimately increase their employability. In coming articles, I intend to comprehensively discuss the importance of experiential learning, so I will not discuss this topic in-depth here; however, it is important to consider this factor when discussing the effect of current trends on college majors’ profitability.
Concluding Thoughts
So why exactly did we take the scenic route through scholarship programs, tuition breakdowns, and ROI charts?
Because this detour reveals that the practicality of a given major isn’t one-size-fits-all. Rather, it is highly individualized, even before we consider strengths, values, or passion.
When we reduce the worth of a degree to raw financial return, we risk turning vocation into mere paycheck-chasing. We funnel would-be historians, philosophers, and musicians into the ranks of “finance bros” and “girlboss CEOs” for nothing more than a pie chart.
Of course, this doesn’t mean students shouldn’t care about the numbers. But it does mean they don’t necessarily need to feel bound by them. Alternate routes exist, including community colleges, scholarships, double majors, internships, and more.
And yes, other routes may overall be cheaper—coding camps, online certifications, portfolio building, etc.
But there are also the music lovers who want to learn the theory behind music, the dance majors who want to study the culture and history of dance, and the archaeology majors inspired by Indiana Jones. For philomaths like these, the question isn’t whether college is worth it, but rather how to make it worth it.
In the end, you may not have to choose between your passion and practicality. You just have to learn how to outsmart the numbers.
Explore more from Hannah Hutchins on Muck Rack.
Image by methaphum on Adobe Stock; Asset ID#: 298048861
Ms. Hutchins appears to be making a mistake that many do — presume that the English language definitions of words applies when the Federal Government uses them. (Hannah, these are people who have been abusing the English language since 1791…)
A person who has no job and is looking for one is not “unemployed.” To be “unemployed” and reflected on the U-1 unemployment statistic, one must be currently receiving unemployment insurance benefits. And to do that, one must have been employed in a job where the employer paid the unemployment tax for you in something like two of the prior five quarters, and you get half of what your average weekly earning was then.
So when Joe College graduates, he is not unemployed unless he had an off-campus non-student job in the past. The Second Quarter is April-June and the Third is July-September (inclusive) so if he had a NON-STUDENT job the prior summer, then he is unemployed. Otherwise he isn’t.
So let’s look at Annie the Art Major and Connie the Comp Sci Major Let’s also say that each had a job Summer 2024. Annie had a campus job helping the Library catalog some collection that had recently been donated while Connie was working for a private cash register company, helping upgrade computerized cash registers across hill and dale.
Both Annie and Connie graduated in May and neither has a job. But only Connie is “unemployed.”
That’s why I would not reach the conclusions that Ms. Hutchins does, not without clear evidence that “unemployed” is defined the way a normal human being would define it, and not the way the government does. (NB: To further complicate things, Annie could have spent Summer 2024 selling Ice Cream at Custard’s Last Stand in China (ME) and in which case she WOULD be eligible for unemployment insurance.)
To further complicate things, there are also people working part time because they can’t find full time work, and then people working two part time jobs for the same reason.
So Annie gets a 6 hour/week job working for her hometown library while Connie has no job. It’s really difficult to do quantitative research on this, particularly when you are dealing with women in their 20s because how do you calculate Lori the Lawyer who got married and is home having babies. And before you dismiss her earning potential, what does she do at age 45 when those babies are off to college — she is back being Lori the Lucrative Lawyer.
The latter is a real problem in the education field because K-12 teaching is usually incredibly friendly to working mothers who can keep their certificates valid and then come back to work some fall in the future. So is Toni’s ROI calculated five years after graduation, i.e. Age 26 when she has no income, or Age 56 when she has gone back to teaching and now is a building principal?