[Education, what it's worth](evernote:///view/89923/s2/8aca0203-1f9e-41ee-bef5-8266cab96e59/8aca0203-1f9e-41ee-bef5-8266cab96e59/) I made my living with databases, but I made a life worth living through my education.  Like Hemingway’s Paris, my liberal arts education is a Movable Feast, always informing, always feeding, always nourishing the inner person, regardless of how I earn my crust of bread. So I hate studies like this.  But I’m afraid this kind of economic analysis is required in these times of extraordinarily high tuitions. However, there is something profoundly wrong with "university as universal job training."   I read through the whole 182 page report and actually was comforted by the "leveling" of most academic majors earnings across the board. Not astounding pay, but livable, particularly for working couples, except at the lowest levels. Singles and singles parents have it tougher, though. One caution, however. This study says absolutely nothing about what kinds of jobs will be in demand 4 years hence. High pay usually indicates scarcity, as someone noted elsewhere.  The highest paid major today is Petroleum Engineer, but a decade ago, before the shale gas boom, PEs were waiting tables. In my college days, the hot major to chase was one that lead to "banking finance." Oops.  Chasing "hot majors" is, at best, a risky endeavor. I’ve always cast a jaundiced eye toward the utility of undergraduate schools of business. So I was struck by how a major in the "business group" was a not much better economic performer than any other degree (particularly if you strip out the more academically demanding professional majors of accounting, economics and finance, which belong in the Math department as much as in the Business department). I see I was correct in my judgement, all those decades ago, of the "bailout" business majors (fashion merchandising, merchandising & marketing, etc.) Besides, I wonder how "rich" their interior lives could be compared to a Liberal Arts major. At least a LA major would have something to think about while dressing department store dummies.  But that’s a personal bias. Median income for the Business Group of majors was $60k (including finance, economics, and accounting, but closer to $50k without those majors) Median income for the Liberal Arts Group of majors was $47k Median income for Social Sciences Group of majors was $55k To save you reading the entire study (Median Income by Major Grouping): 75,000 Engineering 70,000 Computers and Mathematics 60,000 Business 60,000 Health 59,000 Physical Sciences 55,000 Social Science 50,000 Agriculture and Natural Resources 50,000 Communications and Journalism 50,000 Industrial Arts and Consumer Services 50,000 Law and Public Policy 50,000 Biology and Life Science 47,000 Humanities and Liberal Arts 44,000 Arts 42,000 Education (this is a truly appalling number, even for 9 month year) 42,000 Psychology and Social Work 53,000 average for all groups * Full-time, full-year workers with a terminal Bachelor’s. More interest, and much more disturbing, was the differences in pay between the different ethnic groups, not to mention the consistent differences between men & women for comparable majors. Now I admit, I have a liberal arts bias. But I admire the Hard Sciences and STEM fields, mostly because I failed to gain a academic foothold in them. While I was awarded a Minor in Physics, it was as a consolation prize after a year of striving, barely by actual grade achievement. I just didn’t have the math chops.  It is humbling to be in a class where mathematical formulas spoke to other students the way Plato, Augustus and Hobbes did to me. So I ended up with a double BA Political Science and Literature, minor in Physics and then went on to built an entire 25-year career from a $5,000, 2 week course in SQL databases. Having a foot in both the tech world and the liberal arts has made my work life and my inner life all the richer. I’ve never regretted my education. You can’t tell which way a life and a career will turn, regardless of the major. And regardless of your major, you are still responsible for building and living your life.  Besides, there is good evidence that all disciplines benefit from a Liberal Arts education, even Medicine and Engineering. VFH radio, With Good Reason did an excellent podcast STEM vs. the Humanities? | With Good Reason Radio <http://ow.ly/oJvM6>