The 10 Worst College Majors

Not all college degrees are created equal. According to a report by the Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) at Georgetown University, your choice of college major substantially affects your employment prospects and earnings.
“What you make depends a lot on what you take,” says Anthony P. Carnevale, Ph.D., director of Georgetown’s CEW. “Most young people in college take whatever interests them, without thinking what it can really do for them.”
So which college majors are the least valuable in terms of career prospects and expected salary? Using data provided by the CEW from the 2009 and 2010 American Community Survey, Forbes discovered the 10 worst college majors based on high initial unemployment rates and low initial median earnings of full-time, full-year workers. The findings? While the arts may be good for the soul, artistic majors are terrible for the bank account.
Topping the list at No. 1, anthropology and archeology represent the worst choice of college major in economic terms. Recent college graduates of the major, those ages 22 to 26, can expect an unemployment rate of 10.5%, well above the national average. When they do land a job, the median salary is just $28,000, compared to a mechanical engineer’s initial earnings of $58,000.
With low demand and low earnings, the arts and humanities are well-represented on this list. Film, video and photographic arts (No. 2) features a 12.9% unemployment rate for recent grads; fine arts (No. 3) has a rate of 12.6%; and philosophy and religious studies is a high 10.8%. All earn a median of just $30,000.
Full List: The 10 Worst College Majors
“What society rewards in economic terms has moved away from the softer majors,” says Carnevale. “It’s become about how much math you do.”
Non-technical majors–the arts (11.1%), humanities and liberal arts (9.4%), social sciences (8.9%) and law and public policy (8.1%)–generally have higher unemployment rates. Conversely, health care, business, and the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) have been more stable and higher paying for recent college graduates. A nursing grad, for instance, faces a below-average unemployment rate of 4% and a median starting salary of $48,000.
Arts and social sciences are also harder hit in recessions. “When the economy is robust, the demand for the arts goes up,” says Carnevale, “but in a recession, they are the first victims.” The collapse of the housing market means architecture majors now face an unemployment rate of 13.9%, the highest of all the majors tracked. However, once employed, experienced workers earn an above-average median salary of $64,000.
The value of specific degree types has transformed dramatically since the early 1980s, says Carnevale. While a bachelor’s degree was once a general qualification that could land recipients in a number of different jobs, the last three decades have shown increasing specialization and differentiation of earnings across majors. He believes the change has largely been driven by technology, which increased the demand for knowledge-based workers and technical training.
Is a four-year college degree still worth it? Carnevale offers an emphatic “yes,” saying the earnings advantage of a bachelor’s degree over a 45-year career is $1.2 million on average. The advantage of an engineering bachelor’s is a whopping $3 million. However, he warns that if you want to pursue the arts and social sciences, you should either combine the study with a more practical major or go for a graduate degree.

“There’s an escalation in requirements,” says Carnevale. “For degrees like teaching, psychology and the arts, if you don’t get a graduate degree, you don’t make much money.”