
Which degrees give the best financial returns? - theocs
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/03/daily-chart-2?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/revengeofthenerds
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puranjay
Humanities (English) graduate here. I'll be honest: my education did help me
understand the world better, but it left me completely and utterly unprepared
for a role outside of academia.

Fortunately, I've had an entrepreneurial spirit and freelanced my way through
college and through extensive self-study, built up a career in marketing.

But my college mates who weren't as entrepreneurial, or didn't have as much
business sense are suffering. They're working mostly dead end jobs or grinding
away at the bottom end of academia. It's not pretty.

I would caution anyone going for a humanities degree to think long and hard
about their decision. If you're not entrepreneurial, can't hustle, and don't
pick up secondary skills (marketing, coding, sales, etc.), you're going to
have a hard, hard time.

~~~
flexie
Thank you for the honesty. It is a touchy subject.

Whereas there are several examples of graduates or dropouts within humanities
who did very well for themselves (most famously superstars as Zuckerberg, Jobs
and PG) it's almost always outside the fields they studied.

PG didn't set up the most famous philosophical school, Zuckerberg didn't make
the largest psychological experiment (or did he?).

~~~
puranjay
Well, most entertainers, writers, comedians, etc. tend to have a humanities
background. But these people (like Patton Oswalt) are outliers; they are so
ridiculously talented that they would've done with or without _any_ degree.

The more time I spend in humanities, the more I realize that this is a field
only for the exceptionally talented or the exceptionally hard working.

I'm neither of these things. I just happened to grind away and had a strong
analytical mind.

This also means that if you get an application from a humanities grad who has
'made it' within or outside the field, you should take notice - it's likely
that this grad worked far harder/smarter than a STEM major to get where he is.

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zhte415
One of the comments to the article makes the very valid point no control for
sex is done, and Math/CompSci/Engineering degrees are much more male
dominated.

Could this also be expanded to location? Salaries in high cost locations tend
to be higher. Salaries, over 1 or 20 years, are not the same thing as take-
home net of living and property costs. Are Math/CompSci/Engineering employment
paths located in higher cost locations? I don't know, but they could be.

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morgante
One huge factor that this study apparently left out is that more prestigious
universities can generally offer much better financial aid, and hence offer a
much better ROI for middle and low income students.

MIT and Podunk U might have the same effect on your salary, but if MIT is
charging you only $5,000 a year (including room & board), it's going to be an
order of magnitude better ROI.

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intopieces
It seems that in America, there can be no education for education's sake;
post-secondary pursuit of knowledge has been so monetized that 18-year-olds
are expected to see into the future and determine the earning prospects over
their 50-year-career. If your interests are in less paying fields you are the
target of constant derision.

These articles and charts change nothing. They merely allow the prized few
whose talents and interests line up with the capitalist zeitgeist to pat
themselves on the back and shun all those little people who dared to pursue
their own genuine interest with their own life and their own money.

~~~
douche
In the US, we can't go to university for $500 a year, like in some European
countries. Or like our parents did a generation ago.

You've got to come up with the scratch somehow to pay for the education, and
that comes in, on average, somewhere north of $20k per year. Most people take
out student loans, and graduate with the equivalent of a medium mortgage-worth
of debt out of the gate. If you get a degree in some squishy field, you're
taking the risk that you're going to sentence yourself to a decade or more of
near-poverty because of the combination of loan debt and low salary/lack of
occupation in that field, or you have to double-down and go to grad school,
racking up more years of debt. Then you might find that you haven't bought
yourself much advantage with the two or three years and $75k you spent.

It's always your decision what to do. Fiscal prudence shouldn't be a target of
derision either. You can always go pursue your passions on your own time after
you put food on the table.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
None of what you said actually enables anyone to make accurate, or even
rational, forecasts of which educations will be the most profitable 50 years
into the future. Even 20-30 is fairly difficult.

~~~
douche
You may not be able to pick the best horse in the race, but you probably
shouldn't bet your life's savings on the three-legged, spavined goat.

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bubo_sibiricus
That which gives the highest financial return is unrelated to the degree.
Political connections and charisma is what makes you the most financially
successful.

Look at Carly Fiorina - sucks at running a business, but she's rich because
she's connected and talks a lot. Same with a lot of CEOs and politicians.

It's why many people go to big name schools like Harvard. Not because it's a
good school, there are many good schools, but because of the political
connections one may make. If you live in Utah and plan to stay there, and you
want political connections, you go to BYU, not Harvard, even if you qualify
for a full ride at Harvard.

Speaking of which, there is definitely something in the water when it comes to
BYU and political funny-business. And it ain't ethics.

~~~
vankap
BYU does produce some really good CS grads though :)

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stickhandle
No argument with the premise or results. That said, if I were to advise a 16
yo self, I would include consideration for skilled trades. A
plumber/electrician/hvac specialist with decent
business/accounting/bookkeeping skills can pretty much write their own ticket
past apprenticeship.

~~~
morgante
I don't think anyone who can cut it as a top maths/eng graduate should
consider a trade. It's a gross misuse of their skills and will definitely lead
to lower returns over their lifetime.

Skilled trades are a great option for a mediocre student with no real
interests, but it's not really an ideal alternative to tech.

~~~
czbond
I used to think that too (as a comp sci guy). But the old adage is true "A
students work for B students, who work for the owners - C Students". What I've
found in life is that the smartest make intellectual advances, but rarely take
life risks due to over-rationalization.

~~~
morgante
I'm not sure what your point is.

I'm not much of an academic type myself. I was talking about careers: you're
going to make a lot more money and have much more impact as a
developer/software guy than as a tradesman.

I don't know of (m)any software developers working for plumbers.

~~~
douche
There's some other considerations that might come into play there:

Do you take great satisfaction and pleasure in working with your hands and
working on concrete projects?

Do you want to live someplace outside the big-money tech bubbles?

Maybe you don't care about impacting the world - you just want to make a nice
living and hang out with your family.

I'm sure there's others.

~~~
morgante
I'm not saying that everyone should be a developer. Plenty of people are well-
suited to a skilled trade if that's what they enjoy.

What I was arguing against is this idea that someone becoming a plumber is the
economically superior option.

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spo81rty
On the developer side I have seen studies showing those with less college
actually make more than those with the most college education. Good
programmers are self taught. It is in their blood. Getting a masters degree in
computer science doesn't guarantee you are a good developer. It isn't a
requirement or necessary like some other careers. It's meaningless compared to
on the job experience.

At my last startup, the first 3 developers, including myself, all lacked a
college degree. We kicked butt and knocked it out of the park.

~~~
morgante
If your sample size is your coworkers, there's a giant selection bias.

You're ignoring the countless developers who didn't graduate from college but
also can't get a good job. I know plenty of them and they're basically stuck
on a treadmill of making crappy WordPress sites.

While it's true that great developers will probably do well degree or no
degree, it's definitely a boon for average developers.

Also consider that even for good developers the additional offers which might
come from a degree can drive up their salary. Even if you have no intention of
working in finance, a $300k offer from Goldman (which generally requires a
degree) can help to empower your negotiations elsewhere.

~~~
dsacco
I agree with you that the OP has selection bias, but I'd like to pick a nit in
your example. Goldman Sachs does not generally require a degree for
developers, which means that it's not a suitable example for your argument. A
better argument would be some Fortune 500 company that offers high salaries
with a hard rule on credentials.

Goldman's careers portal certainly makes it annoying to try and apply without
one (but you can!), and of course their job ads mention it as a qualification,
but I can tell you from personal experience they don't require a degree.
Google also lists a degree as a qualification for their engineering roles;
they don't care either.

Like almost every other credential in the software industry, a degree is
mostly useful for getting to the actual interview as a blind, poorly networked
applicant. But if you're being invited to interview, or you contact a hiring
manager directly - no, they don't care.

While we're on the topic, I'll throw this in since a lot of the HN crowd seems
to be unaware - if we are comparing salaries to financial companies primarily
based in New York, you can make $300k at any large tech company like Google or
Facebook once you're at T5 or higher in New York. While finance companies can
greatly inflate developer salaries beyond tech companies, $300k is not the
floor at which you'd make that comparison.

That comparison is made in the seven figure salary range. The roles in that
range are out of reach for general engineers at Google et al because they deal
in specialized trading disciplines, which means they are still not comparable.

This leads me to the next note - all the large tech companies are pretty much
explicitly ambivalent about degrees, even for landing an interview as a lowly,
unconnected candidate.

~~~
morgante
That's an awful long nit to pick. Goldman was just a random example, I wasn't
trying to make a comment about their specific hiring policies.

My point, which I still believe holds, is that in general the market rate for
credentialed developers is higher than for non-credentialed ones.

Obviously this isn't true in all cases and certainly not at the highest
levels, but the fact is that having a degree can only increase the supply of
jobs available to you. It's not going to be a negative for your earning
potential, especially when you consider that the average developer is not
working at either Google or Goldman.

~~~
dsacco
Your point still stands, and I definitely agree with you. A degree is
generally a good investment that should only be skipped with caution,
sufficient drive and personal affinity for programming.

I just wanted to go off on a tangent because I don't think it's common
knowledge that the large finance companies will hire uncredentialed devs.

~~~
morgante
> I just wanted to go off on a tangent because I don't think it's common
> knowledge that the large finance companies will hire uncredentialed devs.

Fair point. I've actually never seen any evidence that they do (not that I've
looked closely) and am surprised.

Do you have to have prior industry experience in a particular niche to get in
without a credential? (Ex. low latency expertise.)

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mwhuang2
Good to hear that engineering is less dependent on institutional prestige. As
someone who doesn't attend a name-brand university, I hope to be evaluated
more for my skills than for the school I went to.

~~~
brianwawok
It may make your first offer harder. Some companies are way more likely to put
a booth at the career fair of MIT compared to Foo State. After that meh.. some
people care about schools, many do not.

~~~
santaclaus
I would imagine that the social network one builds in college can help later
on, too, if only for internal referrals. I would be interested to see what
percentage of Google employees attended Stanford vs. other schools vs. started
professionally programming without a college degree.

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dpweb
It's problematic looking at salaries college students vs. non-college
students, as if the single choice of going to school or not makes the
difference, and getting the degree assures the good pay. Too many recent
graduates know better.

Obviously college students would make more than non-college. Just for the fact
that supply and demand in the job market - less people will go further in
their education and so the college grad, masters, PhD is going to be less
supply.

Looking at salary as a return on investment of tuition however, that is
shoddy. The very smart person will make more money (if they decide that is
important to them), but not because they went to college - other personal
characteristics will determine that.

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WalterBright
Regardless of major, to move past a certain level, some knowledge of business
fundamentals is necessary. Things like accounting, marketing, sales,
management, finance, etc.

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jkot
That list is missing 'no degree'.

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GoodJokes
Which degrees give the best societal return? yay capitalism

