Each year, PayScale ranks college degrees based on their earnings potential. Not surprisingly, theology and religious studies ranked near the bottom, proving once again that they should be used to help you store up treasures in heaven since they won’t earn you riches down here on earth.
The figure on the left is the starting median salarly; the figure on the right is the mid-career median salary.
payscale
See more of the list here.
May 12th, 2010 | 1:17 pm
I’m just curious as to whether the irony of posting this right after the post on the decline of the humanities is intentional or just divinely providential? I think part of the overall decline of the university, and not just the humanities, is found in this idea that the value of a degree comes from what we can earn from it afterwards. If the value of a degree is measured only economically, then all of Deenan’s arguments that we’ve lost something about the humanities as formational is moot.
May 12th, 2010 | 1:26 pm
Am I missing something? Religious studies seems to be the highest paid degree.
May 12th, 2010 | 1:51 pm
Tom Daly,
I think it’s a snippet of some of the lower rankings.
May 12th, 2010 | 7:28 pm
Definitely the low end of the scale. Notice the absence of all engineering disciplines.
May 13th, 2010 | 5:28 pm
Theology median income numbers likely are low due to the higher prevalence of those pursuing religious vocations among such undergraduates. I think we can all agree if you want to make a lot of money you are ill suited to enter the priesthood, etc.
May 13th, 2010 | 8:34 pm
Predicted income for philosophy majors begins at $40K and assumed to rise to over $76K.
I never thought of philosophy as a cash-cow kinda profession. And if it is, what effect does a healthy salary have on the ruminations trained philosophers indulge in?
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