Be careful choosing college majors based on jobs

COMMENTARY Lately, the value of college has been hotly debated by economists, business leaders and experts. But for students and parents the question of whether going into debt to get a degree is a good idea isn't merely academic. The outcome of this mental math can mean either a crushing combination of a heavy student-loan burden and few employment prospects or a thriving career for young people.

The Wall Street Journal charged into this lively conversation this week with an extensive chart of Census 2010 data that shows unemployment rate and earnings for various college majors. Graduates in actuarial science have an impressive 0 percent rate of unemployment and a median income of $81,000, while those with a degree in clinical psychology face an unemployment rate of 19.5 percent and median earnings of a far more modest $40,000.

At first blush, this is hugely helpful information for young people weighing different majors. (Plus, the complete chart is big and fascinating for anyone interested in the economics of education.) However, do these numbers offer a clear picture of likely outcomes for different courses of study?

Maybe not, argues Gabriel Rossman, a sociology professor at UCLA, in a geeky but thought-provoking post on his blog. He looked at the WSJ data, which also ranks the majors by popularity, and noticed something many readers may have missed:

One thing that struck me: The highest and lowest unemployment rates were dominated by tiny majors. In general, small populations tend to have more widely varying outcomes as a function of standard error, which is why you should always ignore headlines about big jumps in the crime rate for small towns. Anyway, I downloaded the data, generated some plots, and yup, it's your classic funnel.

While many of us may not be as familiar as Rossman with "the classic funnel," the point is clear even for non-data nerds -- with tiny sample sizes the data on rarer majors (hello, actuarial science!) may be statistically unreliable, skewed by a few very successful or very unsuccessful grads.

If you only flip a coin two times and get heads twice it's easy, but incorrect, to conclude that the coin somehow favors heads. If you only ask five actuarial scientists how their careers are progressing (the raw numbers on how many actuarial-science grads were surveyed isn't available; five is just a example) and all are gainfully employed, it may be tempting to conclude that the major is a surefire winner. In fact, the correlation between that degree and full employment may be a fluke.

So what's the lesson here? Basically, take the WSJ data with a grain of salt if you're choosing you're a major, or as Rossman puts it:

Moral of the story, don't change your major from clinical psych to actuarial science just yet. On the other hand, nursing, elementary education, and general education really do appear to be real deal outliers of low unemployment.

[Jalonda1]

also, check out this article i read about the job market, Job Details.

[Jalonda1]

The problem is there are too many people looking for jobs, and not enough creating jobs. There has been a transition that has made the job search so incredibly difficult. If you want to compete in any industry you must be prepared to battle with overqualified candidates. So it is the best interest of college students to research career paths with all variable involved. You don't want to spend 4.5 years in school training for an industry that has a 19.5% unemployment rate. Much vetting is necessary when making college, career, and live changes.

[K. Daraa]

hypnotoad72, re ur '...it's about marketing far more than it is innovation.'

A business that sells YOU as the product, can't market a missing widget. There are nearly five times as many students seeking bachelors degree in the US in 2010 as in 1984, yet there are less computer information and science students. Can you seriously think this fact won't impact our national economy and health in the future? My seventeen-year-old son can run information assurance/security circles around most, if not ALL the US professors currently teaching in our US universities, because they are the remnants of a bygone era, the patina of an innovative heritage. Steve Jobs was a marketer, and Steve, God rest his soul, is dead.

[K. Daraa]

hypnotoad72, the article from techrepublic centered on '...succession planning, and filling the next generation of executive positions...', only partly relevant to the subject at hand.

According to the same 2010 census data, the following percentages of US undergraduate degrees were earned by foreign-born students:
33 percent of all bachelor's degrees in engineering
27 percent of all bachelor's degrees in computers, mathematics and statistics
24 percent in physical sciences
17 percent in biological, agricultural and environmental sciences

According to the Institute of Educational Studies, almost a fifth of all degrees awarded to foreign students in the US for the 2009/2010 academic year were engineering degrees. By the same token, the year before, 5.3 percent of US citizen undergraduate degree were in engineering, below the 5.6 percent of 'visual and performing arts'. Not only that, there are NO STEM percentages in a category higher than engineering's 5.3 percent.

According to the 2010 Census data, there are now 4.2 million foreign-born science and engineering degree holders residing in the US, which is good for the US; however, decisions about America's future, and preferred US jobs are also, by default, going to many of these same foreign-born people.

I sat in a top US engineering university's graduation ceremony two years ago and watched thousands of degrees handed out to American students. A very small percentage of Masters went to US citizens with probably over 90 percent going to Asian students, then of the PhD's, one went to a US student and over 100 went to foreign students, mostly Asian.

We, as a country, may be missing the boat on STEM-related careers. When performing arts degrees outnumber engineering degrees, we have a problem. Granted, us baby-boomers will need a lot of physical fitness - sports therapists to help us through the next thirty years, but beyond that, how will those vast quantities of jock therapists remain employed, and will their legacy be continued US prosperity? I doubt that.

[K. Daraa]

It is obvious reading the census data that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) related careers earn exponentially higher paybacks for education monies spent, with almost universally lower unemployment rates than all other categories listed on the chart. It was also no surprise that "school counselor" was rated so low. Is there a connection between what youth choose as lifetime careers, and the quality and duration of career counseling they receive early on? If I were a counselor, my mantra for nearly every student passing through would be 'STEM, STEM, STEM!' These, plus real, thoughtful, applied effort, at an early age, are the golden keys to success.