Worried about what you will study in the future or what your children want to study? Today, a university degree does not guarantee you a decent salary, especially those in liberal arts.
Graduates in social work, education or arts, frequently have the lowest average incomes within five years of graduation, per a recent survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The survey only includes full-time employees who have earned a bachelor’s degree; those who are still enrolled in school are excluded.
As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in their last studies, and based on 2023, the data shows that the average salary for these careers is below the average American wage of $48,060.
While engineering majors can make up to $80,000 in their early careers, many liberal arts and education majors make more like $40,000. In all major examined, the median salary was $50,000.
How much is paid in different occupations?
In careers like Foreign Language, the annual salary in U.S. is $40,000. If your paths is directed to study General Social Sciences, you can earn $41,000. Performing Arts $41,900, Family and Consumer Science $42,000 and a long list of professions with an average salary below $50,000. Thus confirming that the level of training is not in line with wages.
Early childhood education majors earn the lowest of all mid-career graduates, with an average income of $49,000. Their earnings five years after graduation were just $8,000 higher than this. In contrast, engineering majors typically make six figures by the middle of their careers.
Why these salaries after liberal arts university degrees?
In the United States, the beginning salary for graduates with liberal arts degrees has decreased in comparison to other fields such as science and engineering. This is due to a number of factors, including the growing demand for technology specialists in the labour market, the drop of the value of the skills related to art employers, and the competition for certain jobs on the market.
Some factors that may have contributed to the decline in these salaries could be the increased demand for jobs within the technology industry, the low value placed on the skills of people studying this type of university career, a much more competitive market in this sector, even students of these courses also end up with more student debt when they finish their studies.
Would there be any possibility of combating this drop in salaries for students?
In order to compensate the drop in wages in this type of careers, some options for increasing earnings by these students would be to acquire additional knowledge and skills, as this would give them more versatility in the world of work as well as focus on areas that have more demand for work within what they have studied.
In conclusion, even while acquiring a university degree frequently increases earning opportunities, not all academic fields offer high incomes, especially in liberal arts vocations. The study found that graduates in the humanities, social work, or education earn far more than those in engineering or the practical sciences. This discrepancy is a response to increased competition, the need for technology skills over humanistic ones, and changing labor market demands.
Despite initiatives to improve the situation, such acquiring new skills or focusing in sectors with more demand, wage inequality persists and continues to be an issue for graduates as well as the educational system. Therefore the relationship between academic preparation, market demands, and the professional worth of different areas must thus be reexamined.
We have always been told that we should pursue our dreams, whatever they are, but as the economic landscape stands, the choices are reduced to choosing a career with a good average salary or studying abroad where all skills are valued equally.
