The Choice: What’s Your Major Worth?

 

As the cost of college climbs ever higher each year, amid a national economic forecast that remains cloudy, questions about the value of a four-year degree are being raised with increased urgency.

The latest piece of evidence to become part of that debate is a report released Tuesday by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Its seductive title: “What’s it Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors.”

The good news? “While there is a lot of variation in earnings over a lifetime,” the center said in a press release, “the authors find that all undergraduate majors are ‘worth it,’ even taking into account the cost of college and lost earnings.”

And yet, for those applicants to college seeking the most bang for their buck — at least as defined as maximizing their lifetime earnings — the authors used census data to conclude that the top majors as ranked by highest median earnings included petroleum engineer ($120,000), pharmacy/pharmaceutical sciences ($105,000) and mathematics and computer sciences ($98,000). The lowest? Counseling/psychology ($29,000), early childhood education ($36,000) and theology/religious vocations ($38,000.)

Often in discussions like these, the “value” of a liberal arts education becomes difficult to peg. While not always utilitarian or pragmatic, a degree in English or the humanities can enrich one’s life, in incalculable ways, for decades. But do such degrees “pay”?

“Liberal arts and humanities majors end up in the middle of the pack in terms of earnings and employment,” the center says in its release. “They are the third most popular major group, and earn median incomes of $47,000. Moreover, about 40 percent of people with these majors obtain a graduate degree, reaping a return of almost 50 percent.”

Those who wish to dive further into the report, which numbers more than 200 pages, can do so here.

But as a less intimidating first stop, I suggest that readers detour instead to the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education, where the editors have created an interactive graphic in which users can easily seek out the range of career earnings for those who have studied particular majors.

But regardless of where you seek out more information, I hope you will take a moment to register a comment on The Choice using the box below. I am particularly interested in how strong a factor you believe one’s future earnings should be in choosing a course of study in college.

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Pitzer College in California Adds Major in Secularism

Starting this fall, Pitzer College, a small liberal arts institution in Southern California, will inaugurate a department of secular studies. Professors from other departments, including history, philosophy, religion, science and sociology, will teach courses like “God, Darwin and Design in America,” “Anxiety in the Age of Reason” and “Bible as Literature.”

The department was proposed by Phil Zuckerman, a sociologist of religion, who describes himself as “culturally Jewish, but agnostic-atheist on questions of deep mystery.” Over the years he grew increasingly intrigued by the growth of secularism in the United States and around the world. He studied and taught in Denmark, one of the world’s most secular countries, and has written several books about atheism.

Studying nonbelief is as valid as studying belief, Mr. Zuckerman said, and the new major will make that very clear.

“It’s not about arguing ‘Is there a God or not?’?” Mr. Zuckerman said. “There are hundreds of millions of people who are nonreligious. I want to know who they are, what they believe, why they are nonreligious. You have some countries where huge percentages of people — Czechs, Scandinavians — now call themselves atheists. Canada is experiencing a huge wave of secularization. This is happening very rapidly.

“It has not been studied,” he added.

The percentage of American adults who say they have no religion has doubled in 20 years, to 15 percent, according to the American Religious Identification Survey, released in 2008. The survey was conducted by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, which houses the Institute for the Study of Secularism, Society and Culture but does not have a distinct major in secular studies.

Barry A. Kosmin, the director of the institute, said Pitzer College would be the first to have such a major. The institute hosted a conference for academics in California a few years ago on how to develop courses on secularism, which Mr. Zuckerman attended.

Initially, Mr. Zuckerman said he found some skepticism on campus about a secular studies major.

“I had to convince them that this is not an antireligion degree, any more than a religion department exists to bash nonbelievers,” he said.

Pitzer, founded in 1963, is known as a liberal college that emphasizes community service and environmentalism, and its students receive an inordinate number of Fulbright fellowships for study abroad. It is one of the seven Claremont Colleges, neighboring campuses where students may take courses at institutions other than their own.

On April 28, Pitzer faculty members on the College Council voted unanimously to approve the secular studies major, subject to review in four years.

Laura Skandera Trombley, the president of Pitzer, said in an interview, “It’s a serious area of scholarly endeavor, and Pitzer College has a tradition of doing really exciting, cutting-edge intellectual work, so this really fits into the ethos of the college.”

Mr. Zuckerman said he immediately heard from three students interested in the major. One of them was Kiley Lawrence, a freshman from Mission Hills, Kan., and a pre-med student at Scripps College, one of the seven Claremont Colleges.

Ms. Lawrence attended an Episcopal school through eighth grade and was well versed in the Bible, but she said she became a skeptic early on. Now she plans to declare a double major in biophysics and secular studies, because, she said, “each enhances the other.”

Ms. Lawrence, 19, said, “I feel as though I’m being included in something really exciting and innovative, and perhaps even historic.”

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YouTube Is Said to Be Near a Major Film Rental Deal

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers have agreed to rent movies via YouTube, according to two studio executives who spoke on condition of anonymity because they said YouTube wanted to make the announcement. Rental fees are expected to be comparable to those charged by rivals like iTunes.

YouTube, however, has only half of the industry’s top players on board. Still on the sidelines are Walt Disney Studios, which is closely aligned with Apple, and 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. Paramount’s corporate owner, Viacom, is still battling YouTube in court over copyright infringement. These three studios together control about 60 percent of the North American movie market.

YouTube declined to comment on reports of new rental deals. “We’ve steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago and now have thousands of titles available,” said YouTube in a statement.

Lionsgate Entertainment, the Weinstein Company and independent filmmakers already make films available for rent on the site for $2 to $4, including “Scary Movie 4,” “3:10 to Yuma” and “Saw.”

But the arrival of bigger Sony, Universal and Warner movies would give the streaming service a shot in the arm as it tries to compete with Apple’s iTunes, Amazon.com and Netflix. YouTube has been trying several strategies to keep people on the site for longer periods as it tries to poach viewers from TV and attract ad dollars.

Despite YouTube’s popularity — people view videos on the site two billion times a day — its film rentals do not appear to have gained much traction.

Still, YouTube offers movie studios more than just viewers, said James L. McQuivey, a digital media analyst at Forrester Research. Google can provide valuable data on how many people have searched for movies and which terms they used to search.

“That’s just a marketing chain of cause and effect that nobody else asking movie studios for rights to rentals can show,” Mr. McQuivey said. “You don’t necessarily need to show that a rental has been blockbuster successful to show a movie studio that it’s an avenue worth pursuing.”

Studios have repeatedly said that their digital strategies involve making on-demand deals with as many legitimate Web sites as they can — reflecting lessons learned from the music industry’s attempt to shut down digital consumption. They are also eager to replace dwindling DVD revenue. The latest rental plans were first reported by TheWrap.com, a movie industry blog.

But the chill between YouTube and Hollywood has taken time to ease. During its first few years, YouTube stood behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and told media companies it was not legally required to remove unauthorized material from its site unless specifically asked to do so by the owner. The stance provoked a $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom and broad animosity from media executives.

The willingness of mainstream studios like Sony, Universal and Warner to finally play ball reflects the work YouTube has done to make its portal look less like an online video garage sale. The site has also made it easier for media companies to take down pirated video content. It does not hurt that a New York federal judge last year sided with YouTube in the Viacom lawsuit; Viacom has since appealed.

“The fact that there’s still a few studios holding out on Google just goes to show you that even though this is an obvious no-brainer decision, the fear of Google still rests heavily on people’s minds,” Mr. McQuivey said. “But eventually they’ll all be there because why on earth would you refuse to put your content in the path of millions of users?”