By this, do you mean generic bachelor’s degree jobs that are not major specific (and probably highly competitive for the better ones because lots of bachelor’s degree graduates in many majors apply for them), or high school graduate jobs?
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I occassionally rent cars from my local Enterprise and they seem to employ a lot of new graduates (I assume from all different college backgrounds).
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Im not an economist but looking at the 10 year treasury yield and wondering how this is going to affect smaller companies and their ability to hire new graduates next year.
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Though in fairness, and I don’t know if Enterprise is one of these, but there are a number of companies that hire interns or new college grads into managerial or engineering or other “professional” (there’s got to be a better word, but I can’t think of it) roles, but also require those new employees to have some sort of front-line consumer-facing experience as part of their onboarding, so that they for certain know what’s involved at that level.
Yes, it’s both.
Disney famously requires even senior vice presidents to rotate in and out of the theme parks- directing guests to attractions, picking up trash, traffic control when the lines get out of hand at some rides. Walmart has many employees at ALL levels spend time behind the register, stocking shelves, etc. But the rental car companies (and some of the big hotel chains) actually hire college grads into entry level roles leading to something bigger which require starting behind the desk. Psych majors, Communications majors, Foreign languages-- start at a mid-size airport, get promoted to a hub, then you’re on your way into a leadership role.
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Waffle House and the Coca Cola bottlers made management also work the line.
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My son is a CS type major that is currently working but not thrilled with his job. In the past 2 weeks recruiters have been reaching out to him left and right. Also where he is they just hired two college grads. He feels like things are opening up.
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NYT Gift article -
A College-by-College Guide to Which Majors Pay Off — or Don’t
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It is interesting that some majors have narrow ranges and others have broad ranges. I think the Duke Math data point is in finance.
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NYT Gift article -
At Nearly $300,000, Some Recent Duke Graduates Out-Earned All Their Peers
“I am hesitant to celebrate earnings as the sole marker of educational success,” said Greg Herschlag, a Duke math professor, via email, while emphasizing his enthusiasm for the field and any teenager who pursues it. “I would rather universities and departments be judged not simply by how well their graduates do for themselves, but by how much value they create for others: how much they contribute to society, who benefits from that labor and whether that work is improving people’s lives.”
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Usually serious math departments are unhappy if their kids don’t go into a PhD.
These numbers are distorted because it is pay data only from people who took govt aid. Not a full sample.
And the high end of the job market for some math type kids, pay is running at around 1mm/yr these days, new grad (unlike the 4 year number given in the study), and MIT will far exceed Duke in placing into those kinds of jobs.
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Exactly. The same goes for the Juilliard “example” that is highlighted in the opening paragraph.
Many of the top candidates to Juilliard and other conservatories will be offered merit/talent scholarships, often full tuition. They would not be included in this salary average. I would expect these same musicians would be higher income earners upon graduation.
Someone once said, “If you twist numbers enough, you can get them to tell you anything.”
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Yeah, precisely—do your math majors go into finance, or do they become K–12 teachers?
The former get paid more, but the latter are probably more desperately needed in the world today.
So which is better?
Used to be the case, much less so now.
The reality of the academic job market has finally managed to penetrate past the survivorship bias that college faculty have traditionally suffered from—and so the idea that the good students will naturally get a PhD is gone pretty much everywhere, except maybe for a few fields (e.g., economics) where a PhD is more likely to get you a good non-academic job than an academic one.
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Yes. It is a free country. Each person goes with whatever is in their heart. Better for whom? We are not a collectivist country.
Also all the math grads can’t go back to teach. At that point the field loses meaning if it has no separate external utility. You need to have a bunch of them go and do other things than simply teaching the next math teachers.
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There are other options for math majors besides finance and teaching. Math majors map disease transmission patterns for pharma companies. Math majors work with agronomists modeling climate patterns for optimal harvests. Math majors work in large construction companies developing predictive guidelines for earthquake, flood mitigation. Math majors works for transportation companies and cities evaluating mass transit/private auto usage and creating new and better mobility solutions.
Etc. CC apparently knows four professions- medical (nurses AND physicians, we are so evolved), Finance and accounting, engineering, and teaching. Everyone else folds sweaters at the Gap (or barista).
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Oh, certainly! (I have a math major kid, I’ve certainly looked at career outcomes!)
But if you want to pick well-known possible career paths with widely varying income outcomes, well, there you are.
A lot of the other jobs you list need training in domain knowledge. For example, you need training modeling earthquakes before you are given a job modeling earthquakes. You can’t get it just because you are a math major. You need to know some geology etc.
People who know build earthquake resistant foundations have PhDs in Civil Engg in that specialty. Not just math majors. I know some of these people.
The only reason finance comes up in conversation is finance people will take the math major directly without a finance degree.
Finance comes up in conversations because parents and kids are convinced that it’s the optimal path for a kid who hates blood (so no MD), doesn’t like to read (so law school is out) and can’t be bothered figuring out any of the other hundreds of fine career paths that are out there.
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How many math kids do you think the earth quake prediction business (commercial firm) absorbs every year? And how many kids do you think are absorbed in climate modeling in a commercial enterprise (non academic setting) per year? I am genuinely curious. I did not know it is such a big market. I am curious. For context the US college system graduates about 25k math undergrads a year.