Liberal Arts majors have always gotten a bad rep as far as future income is concerned, but do they really end up with as a low of an income as everyone thinks? According to the article, “Good News Liberal-Arts Majors: Your Peers Probably Won’t Outearn You Forever” one woman by the name of Andy Anderegg worked her way up from $33,000 a year a Groupon, all the way up to more than $100,000 before the age of 30. I don’t know about you, but at 30 years old I would be more than happy with that. She had obtained a degree in English and then a masters degree in fine arts, which in my eyes put her right at the top. Now why is it that liberal-art majors get such a bad rep? Well, the numbers can get a little tricky.
Liberal arts majors on average start around $39,000, while the average finance major or nursing major averages over $50,000. However, it is shown that liberal-art majors soon pursue graduate degrees, which then makes them a more marketable asset. Once liberal-art majors reach their peak earnings, the average is over $66,000 a year. This is well over $10,000 more than the average American. This is also around 3% ahead of the earnings pace for those accounting and nursing degrees. How about this; people with philosophy degrees on average are making $97,000 a year after 20 plus years of experience. That’s higher than the average accounting, business management and nursing annual incomes after the same years of experience. We can even talk about political science, which is averaging $89,000 and History, which is at $81,000 a year. The most shocking numbers would be the annual increase after five or more years. On average, liberal-arts majors will be making $35,000 more a year. Yes, $35,000 more a year. That means if you take the average starting pay at $39,000, now add $35,000, you get $74,000 a year. That increase is the same, if not better than most other jobs.
So I’m here with the same question as before, why are liberal-arts majors the butt of everyone’s joke? Most likely because it takes time for their careers to take off. They may not be starting out as well as everyone, but time certainly does pay off. Employers even said that they look for liberal arts education on most resumes, such as teamwork experience, problem solving, communication and more. Employers are saying that it’s hard to teach someone how to write and deal with people, while it’s easy to teach them how to read financial statements. Most people tend to lack these soft skills in todays society, so these skills are becoming more and more valuable. Liberal-arts majors tend to have a broader state of mind, which helps immensely with creativity. This is what companies are looking for, rather than someone who can solve a math problem in five seconds. Seems like these majors have a lot more going for them than people think.
