Preston Cooper: Is College Worth The Cost?

Depends, in part, on the major:

   The results show that 28% of bachelor’s degrees, weighted by enrollment, do not have a net positive return. More than a quarter of students are in programs that aren’t worth the cost.Though students often obsess over where they get in, their majors have the most sway over their future earnings.
   Programs in engineering, computer science, economics and nursing all yield a high return, often increasing their students’ net lifetime earnings by $500,000 or more. But a majority of programs in art, music, philosophy and psychology leave their average students financially worse off....

   One of the nation’s highest-return programs is the computer-science major at Harvard University. This degree has an expected value of more than $3 million. But attending the nation’s most elite school is no guarantee of financial security. Harvard’s ethnic and gender studies program leaves its students worse off by around $47,000 on average, according to my estimates.

Too bad about philosophy. It could be that it's just a bad major on this measure, but it could be that philosophy tends to derail smart people from more lucrative careers (philosophy majors rank in the top three majors, on average, after math, physics and astronomy ("top three" because those three seem always to be consolidated in one way or other into two) in GRE scores; so smart isn't just wishful thinking.) 

   OTOH, how would such derailing work? Not that many people are derailed from laws school into philosophy grad school. I was. But there aren't enough people in phil grad school to make that the crucial factor...are there?

   I don't try to talk student into a PHIL major (though some people do). I do tell students that I think it's a great minor or second major...but they should probably do math instead. 

   At least philosophy is largely interesting, and it does seem to hone your mind to some extent. Though analytic philosophy probably gives you a lot of bad intellectual habits. And Continental wrecks you--and is wrecking the country. 

   Grievance studies, OTOH--gender studies, women's studies, AfAm studies, "Latinx" (lol) studies, queer studies blah, blah may not make you rich...or, who knows, they may as the diversity-industrial complex becomes further entrenched, and the demand for bullshit consultants strengthens. 

   The real reason not to go into grievance studies is that it's basically recent Continental philosophy + even bullshittier bullshit that will ruin your mind. It'll leave your head filled with falsehoods and nonsense, and, worse, instill in you terrible habits of reasoning.

   That's all I got.