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Engineers Start Fast, but Poets Can Catch Up

Technical skills change, but a liberal arts education prepares graduates for a lifetime of work. 

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• liberal arts education

• prepares graduates for

① For students chasing lasting wealth, the best choice of a college major is less obvious than you might think.

The conventional wisdom is that computer science and engineering majors have better employment prospects and higher earnings than their peers who choose liberal arts.

This is true for the first job, but the long-term story is more complicated. The advantage for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors fades steadily after their first jobs, and by age 40, the earnings of people who majored in fields like social science or history have caught up.

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• employment prospects

• earnings

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• STEM

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② This happens for two reasons. First, many of the latest technical skills that are in high demand today become obsolete when technology progresses. Older workers must learn these new skills on the fly, while younger workers may have learned them in school. Skill obsolescence and the increased competition from younger graduates work together to lower the earnings advantage for STEM degree-holders as they age.

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• in high demand

• obsolete: obsolescence

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③ Second, although liberal arts majors start slow, they gradually catch up to their peers in STEM fields. This is by design. A liberal arts education fosters valuable “soft skills” like problem-solving, critical thinking and adaptability. Such skills are hard to quantify, and they don’t create clean pathways to high-paying first jobs. But they have long-run value in a wide variety of careers.

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• by design

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• soft skills

• critical thinking

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• quantify:  quantity

Ø qualify: quality

• clean pathways to

• high-paying first job

• long-run=long term

④ Computer science and engineering majors between the ages of 23 and 25 who were working full time earned an average of $61,744 in 2017, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. This was 37 percent higher than the average starting salary of $45,032 earned by people who majored in history or the social sciences (which include economics, political science and sociology). Large differences in starting salary by major held for both men and women.

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⑤ Men majoring in computer science or engineering roughly doubled their starting salaries by age 40, to an average of $124,458. Yet earnings growth is even faster in other majors, and some catch up completely. The average salary of all male college graduates by age 40 was $111,870, and social science and history majors earned $131,154, an average that is lifted, in part, by high-paying jobs in management, business and law. The story was similar for women.

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⑥ Why do the earnings of liberal arts majors catch up? It’s not because poetry suddenly pays the bills. Midcareer salaries are highest in management and business occupations, as well as professions requiring advanced degrees such as law. Liberal arts majors are more likely than STEM graduates to enter those fields.

A traditional liberal arts curriculum includes subjects, like philosophy and literature, that seemingly have little relevance in the modern workplace. Yet many of the skills most desired by employers are also quite abstract. 

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⑦ According to a 2018 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the three attributes of college graduates that employers considered most important were written communication, problem-solving and the ability to work in a team. Quantitative and technical skills both made the top 10, alongside other “soft” skills like initiative, verbal communication and leadership. In the liberal arts tradition, these skills are built through the dialogue between instructors and students, and through close reading and analysis of a broad range of subjects and texts. 

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• the ability to work in a team: team spirit

• quantitative: quantity, quantify

• made the top 10

• initiative: initiate

• verbal communicationßàwritten communication

• instructor: professor

• close reading

• a broad range of

• text

⑧ Liberal arts advocates often argue that education should emphasize the development of the whole person, and that it is much broader than just job training. As an educator myself, I agree wholeheartedly. 

I am not suggesting that students should avoid majoring in STEM fields. STEM graduates still tend to have high earnings throughout their careers, and most colleges require all students — including STEM majors — to take liberal arts courses. 

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⑨ But I do think we should be wary of the impulse to make college curriculums ever more technical and career focused. Rapid technological change makes the case for breadth even stronger. A four-year college degree should prepare students for the next 40 years of working life, and for a future that none of us can imagine.

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