Professor Elam

Monday Oct 25, 2010

Surprise surprise, engineering, CSI, Accounting make more right out of college than liberal arts. 

A dynamic that one might miss is this, there are simply too many liberal arts and humanities majors for the 'market' to possibly absorb them, hence it is difficult to stand out and supply continues to trump demand. 

In a rational market this would not happen, undergrads would gravitate away from low paying majors. But, universities get the same tuition for liberal arts as for business and engineering, the surplus of LA majors makes it less expensive to hire professors, students as I read this weekend, never demand tougher statistics classes, and so, wink wink nod nod, the university never mentions the lack of jobs in one area, using the massive number of LA undergrads to help fund the engineering programs and such for colleges that have them. This is managerial accounting, pure and simple. 

Katharine Brooks is head of Career Placement at UT Austin for liberal arts majors. While this is obviously not aimed at business majors I think I will get a copy, perhaps a couple of us need to write a road map on your business degree as well.