The One Question Every Future College Student Should Ask

Each year, high school students and their families agonize over where to attend college.  The better question for a student to ask is, “What should I major in and where?”  The rising costs of attending a four-year university and the growing questions about the value it provides mean that students and families need to be more discerning than ever about this life-changing decision.

Some universities have hundreds of college programs, and many have a track record of propelling students to great heights. Still, many others leave the typical student saddled with mountains of debt and few career prospects. 

For example, at my alma mater, the University of Delaware, a degree in Management Information Systems and Services will leave the average student $1.5 million better off in terms of lifetime earnings than if they did not complete the degree.  On the other hand, the school’s fine arts, wildlife management, and international relations programs leave students more than $100,000 worse off.  So does a degree in neuroscience.  You can see all this information in a new tool that allows families to access college program ROI data instantly—data that paints a rather grim picture.

Today, one in three college programs leaves students worse off. This calls into question everything we have been told for generations about the necessity of pursuing higher education. According to the excellent work of Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute and former senior fellow at The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, most bachelor’s degrees (77 percent) pay off, but that’s only true for 57 percent of associate degrees and an equal share of master’s degrees. 

Many of the programs to seek out or avoid are commonsense.  Programs in the arts or those with the word “studies” in the name, especially at the graduate level, do poorly, while many computer science programs do quite well.  But others are surprising.  For example, high-quality liberal arts programs do very well (but lower-quality ones do not). 

Others can be exceptionally risky.  More than 80 percent of associate degree students said they ultimately planned to complete a four-year degree, and those who do have decent prospects. However, after six years, only 9 percent of such students had achieved that goal, meaning they likely are worse off than if they had just leveraged their high school diploma and started working.  Likewise, some STEM bachelor’s degrees (like the Delaware neuroscience degree) have little payoff until a student gets a master’s degree or even a PhD—compounding debt and delaying earnings. 

However, the most remarkable differences are between specific programs.  A Design and Applied Arts degree from the University of California-Irvine leaves students $1.2 million better off over the course of their career, but a Fine and Studio Arts degree from California Institute of the Arts leaves students $800,000 worse off.  A Music degree from the elite University of Southern California leaves students more than $500,000 worse off, but a Music degree from the lesser-known California State Polytechnic University-Pomona leaves students more than $150,000 better off.  The reason is that neither program likely has great career prospects, but the USC program costs several times more.

To be clear, future earnings are not the only thing that should matter, and we should absolutely place value on teaching, nursing, and other essential jobs. In addition, it isn’t easy to predict success based on the past. For example, coding program graduates are not guaranteed that high-paying jobs will remain plentiful as AI proliferates. However, at the very least, students and their families deserve to have a reasonable understanding of their income prospects when choosing a college major.

The U.S. Department of Education can do more to ensure that more information is available. Often, the information reported does not distinguish between, for example, different types of history programs. 

States have an important role to play.  They should adopt thoughtful education transparency policies to ensure that students see information about outcomes before deciding where to go to school. 

Bold state leaders should then go further and fund state colleges and universities based on their employment outcomes.  It is crazy to give programs that leave the typical student in the red the same amount of funding as programs that set students up for financial security.  Texas State Technical Colleges, for example, are one hundred percent funded based on measurable outcomes.  This incentivizes higher education leaders to launch more workforce-relevant programs, cut programs that are not working, and invest in internships and other programs likely to make their students successful after they graduate.

Too many programs are too expensive, too politicized, and too disconnected from the practical skills demanded by the workforce.  College shouldn’t be a gamble. Students need assurances they are being set up for success, and legislators need to take action to increase those odds.