Comments on: Visualizing Starting and Mid-Career Salaries by Undergraduate Major

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 14:41:29 +0000

In reply to Rann.

Those are great questions and I wondered about them myself, Rann. As you noted, I don’t have the answers for these questions, I just took the data available, which originally came from the Wall Street Journal here: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 14:12:30 +0000

In reply to Retire Before Dad. Agreed, those popped out to me as well. It's interesting to see how low the mid-salary medians are for this field. They're also only the medians, so there are certainly people who earn more than the numbers here.

By: Retire Before Dad

Retire Before Dad — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 01:21:40 +0000

Great chart. Nursing and Physician Assistant popped out to me right away. Must be frustrating to hit income ceilings in those professions.
-RBD

By: Steveark

Steveark — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:29:48 +0000

And that, along with being a nerd, is exactly why I chose to be a chemical engineer!

By: Rann

Rann — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 23:29:05 +0000

I have a few questions about those figures (and since they aren’t yours, I realize you don’t have the answers). First, do these figures look at all graduates in those fields, or just those who stayed in the field. In other words, that $66,700 salary for Journalism majors–does it include those who are waiting tables, or selling phones, along with those who are writing–or is that the mid-career salary for a journalist? Your note on philosophy majors–by mid-career those who are still in the philosophy field are probably doing well as tenured faculty. Is that the reason for the growth, or does it mean that philosophy majors are able to get good jobs no matter what the industry?