A paper published by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce in 2011, titled "The College Payoff," analyzed the ever-present debate about the financial worthiness of a college degree, many times obtained through ballooning debt.
The study found that over a lifetime, "bachelor's degree holders earn 31% more than those with an associate's degree and 74% more than those with just a high school diploma," and while there are instances where six-figure jobs are obtained by those whose secondary education ended at the baccalaureate level, it is the exception rather than the rule.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, those with the lowest earning potential are workers who did not complete high school, who on average will go on to earn $973,000 over a lifetime. Meanwhile the highest earners are professional degree holders, who can potentially make upwards of $3.6 million during their working years.
For those who chose to attend college, deciding on where to study—and which field of study to pursue—can be impactful. Each year, about 3 million undergraduate degrees are granted and 2 million of them are bachelor's degrees. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the top three degree programs for the period 2009-2010 through 2019-2020 were business, health programs, and social sciences/history, with psychology, biological/biomedical sciences, and engineering not far behind.
Wage variation among fields can vary to an astounding degree. As reported by Stacker in March 2023, "On a national level, those who study nuclear engineering technologies or become technicians in that field have the highest median earnings three years after graduation at $107,804, followed by the fields of biomathematics, bioinformatics, and computational biology ($98,074)." This same report showed that in some states graduates in various liberal arts fields—such as English literature, music, and even education—see earnings as little as one-third of those of engineering grads.
Nonetheless, the disparity in potential future earnings does not necessarily detract from the popularity of such degrees. Best Universities compiled data from the Department of Education on the average number of students enrolled in a particular undergraduate program in the 2017 and 2018 school years, the most recent data available. Slides are sorted alphabetically by state and show the most common degrees awarded to students who attended college in those states.
