According to a New York Federal Reserve analysis, students majoring in liberal arts, performing arts, or theology receive the lowest wages five years after graduating from college, according to CNBC.
According to the data, these three out of 75 majors had the lowest annual salary of $38,000.
Other low-paying fields included leisure and hospitality, history, fine arts, and psychology, all with annual salaries of $40,000 or less, which is slightly lower than the US personal income median of $40,480 as of 2022.
The lowest-paying college majors
Liberal arts graduates frequently earn lower income because their abilities are not directly tied to revenue creation or because there are fewer well-paying positions than graduates, as shown in fine arts degrees.
Meanwhile, education majors are frequently underpaid due to state governments’ incapacity to keep wages in step with inflation, which has accelerated in recent years, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Teachers had weaker employment prospects later in their careers, with education majors earning the lowest salaries among mid-career graduates aged 35 to 45.
Early childhood education majors in mid-career earn the least, with a median annual income of $48,000, which is just $8,000 higher than their post-graduate earnings.
