The charts look at salary at the  beginning of one’s career and at mid-career.  It’s sorted according to schools or majors.  It’s worth a look.  If you’ve paid $200,000 for a child’s education at an intense 4 year liberal arts  college and find she might be earning more had she gone to Podunk U, you can reflect for a while on what your values really are.

But here’s an interesting remark from the NY Times (below shortly); if the claim about where philosophy majors tend to be is as well based as it sseems to be, then it might make a difference to those who are looking at why we see a lower number of  women in philosophy.  On the other hand, do note the the claim might be right about those who major in philosophy and don’t go to graduate school, and wrong about those who do go to graduate school.

So here it is:

who would have thought that philosophy majors in mid-career would earn more than information technology majors in mid-career? This is probably because students who major in philosophy are more likely to go to elite schools, whereas students who major in I.T. are likely to go to pre-professional-type schools that don’t even offer philosophy as a major, Mr. Lee says. So it’s not really the choice of major that’s making the difference – it’s the school.“A student’s choice of major has a huge impact mid-career, enormous,” says Mr. Lee. “But you generally don’t see people majoring in philosophy” — or other “soft” majors, he says — “except in top schools.”

Do notice that the remark about where philosophy majors are found is not based on anecdotal evidence; they have tons of data linking salaries and education.  The only people they are not factoring in are those who do not work or those who go to graduate school.