Have you ever been asked what the Humanities are good for?

[Orrex]

27. "Can earn." That's a good one.

They can also start at $15,080 per year and stay there.

I can't access that site from work, but I suspect that they're focusing on English lit majors who work in that field, e.g. college-level teaching and/or publishing. Sure, there's also the random CEO now and then who has a masters in Victorian poetry, but that's a rare exception rather than the rule.

But outside of working in the field, I flatly don't believe that an English lit degree does anything to secure employment beyond "check here if you have a college degree" on the application. That is, if the job doesn't require the specific degree, then the specific degree is irrelevant. I know a great many liberal arts majors who've had the same experience.

I'm not as bitter about it as I probably sound, but I can tell you as a stone cold fact that PSU all but assured me that lucrative professional opportunities would fall into my lap thanks to my degree. "A liberal arts degree can take you anywhere," they said.

It's almost comical, in retrospect.


Ultimately you're correct in that a great many factors weigh upon one's salary and employability beyond what's stamped on a paper from the college, but IMO colleges should be required to provide a more honest and objective assessment of the likely value of a given course of study before the student commits to $50K of inescapable debt over it.