A recent study by professors at Northeastern University has attested to the importance of your major in determining your income. Some of the majors that help you earn the highest incomes are engineering, physics, economics and astronomy, while the lowest earners include education, social work, visual arts, and music. Interestingly, AU offers several of the high-earning majors, but only two percent of AU students are declared in them.
It's great that AU offers those top-earners, even if they're not popular. However, the study is no reason for the University to shift focus toward those majors. AU has highly successful and well-regarded programs in the School of International Service, School of Public Affairs, School of Communication and Kogod School of Business. AU students generally recognize that the true value of a job isn't written on a paycheck.
The study also said that college graduates who find jobs directly related to their majors make more than $20,000 more in annual salary than those who don't. This is good for AU students, who work under many former professionals who can impart wisdom about getting started in the industry. Plus, just having a college degree increases your salary by about 10 grand, so just by being at AU we've got a leg up.
The overall smallness of the high-earning majors at AU is reflective of the fact that our student body is socially and politically motivated, and realizes there are rewards other than simply money.
