As students and families settle into a new school year, The Hamilton Project presents a new economic analysis and interactive feature exploring earnings by college major.
Brad Hershbein and Melissa Kearney draw on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, focusing on both annual earnings for each year of the career and cumulative lifetime earnings for approximately 80 majors. Hershbein and Kearney found that a college degree—in any major—is important for advancing one’s earnings, and that lifetime earnings vary tremendously by major. Read their full analysis here.
The new interactive feature allows you to compare annual career earnings and lifetime earnings among bachelor’s degree graduates for all 80 majors along with earnings for workers with a high school degree or GED. See the interactive here.
See the Washington Post feature articles:
- Want proof college is worth it? Look at this list of the highest paying majors by Jeff Guo
- What it’s like to graduate from college with the lowest-paying major by Danielle Paquette
