Not All Majors Are Created Equal

A breakdown of salaries by college major and experience, from Forbes magazine. Note that Forbes orders these based on a 10 to 20 year outlook. This may subject these rankings to a survivor bias (weeding out a portion of people who are either not successful in or dislike a particular profession). If using this information to select a major in college, I would recommend putting greater weight on the 0 to 5 year and 5 to 10 year data. I would have found information like this very helpful in helping to choose a major when I was an undergrad.

As I have previously written, majors that require strong quantitative skills are in very high demand and more limited in supply (therefore paying more). Those not requiring strong quantitative skills are much less so. If I were starting over as an undergrad today knowing what I know now, I would either major in computer or electrical engineering (I studied mechanical engineering as an undergrad) or else double-major in computer science (at an ABET accredited school) and economics.

	Major	0 to 5 Years	5 to 10 Years	10 to 20 Years
1	Computer Engineering	$60,500	$80,800	$104,000
2	Economics	$48,100	$71,800	$96,200
3	Electrical Engineering	$59,900	$78,400	$96,100
4	Computer Science	$54,200	$75,100	$94,000
5	Mechanical Engineering	$56,900	$73,000	$88,100
6	Finance	$46,900	$64,300	$84,400
7	Mathematics	$43,500	$64,700	$82,200
8	Civil Engineering	$52,600	$67,100	$81,700
9	Political Science	$39,400	$55,000	$74,400
10	Marketing	$39,400	$54,000	$72,300
11	Accounting	$44,600	$57,900	$71,500
12	History	$37,600	$52,100	$68,000
13	Business Management	$40,900	$51,700	$64,900
14	Communications	$36,400	$50,300	$64,300
15	English	$36,700	$47,900	$62,300
16	Biology	$37,900	$52,600	$60,000
17	Sociology	$35,700	$46,900	$55,900
18	Graphic Design	$34,700	$45,300	$54,700
19	Psychology	$34,700	$45,400	$54,000
20	Criminal Justice	$34,200	$44,400	$53,400

(HT Greg Mankiw)