Edwin Tan/Getty Images
- Bankrate found the "most valuable" majors among 152 fields of study.
- Valuable majors were based on unemployment, salary, and people with advanced degrees.
- Electrical engineering ranked No. 1, but it wasn't the only engineering degree that ranked highly.
A new analysis of 152 majors found engineering degrees are valuable financially and in the labor market.
Bankrate analyzed 2022 American Community Survey data to determine the "most valuable college majors." Unemployment, median annual income, and the share of people with advanced degrees were the metrics used to create the ranking.
"In our ranking, majors are considered valuable if they lead to higher salaries, lower unemployment rates, and require the least amount of education because we were really just focused on bachelor's degrees," Alex Gailey, a Bankrate analyst, told Business Insider.
Still, Gailey said not everyone cares about their salary, and instead, people may put more emphasis on other career aspects, such as pursuing a certain field where they think they can make a difference.
Below are the majors that made the top 10 in Bankrate's ranking:
The top nine most valuable majors had median salaries of at least $100,000. Actuarial science at No. 10 didn't fall too behind in its median salary, at $95,000. Petroleum engineering had the lowest unemployment rate among the top majors and one of the lowest overall. Materials science, at No. 5, had the highest share of people with advanced degrees among the majors at the top of the ranking.
The major that ranked the lowest overall was studio arts. This had a median salary of $40,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.6%. While studio arts and other types of art degrees ranked toward the bottom, Gailey said that doesn't mean these degrees aren't worth it, but they do tend to have higher unemployment and lower median pay than others.
Gailey said obtaining an engineering degree "at an affordable public college is likely to guarantee a fairly solid investment" because of the job opportunities available right after graduation.
"Whereas attending a private college with high tuition costs for, let's say, a fine arts degree may be riskier," Gailey said. "It doesn't mean it's not going to pay off in the long run, but it could be riskier because part of the equation is what costs you're incurring on the front end and how the outputs exceed essentially what you're paying."
Despite how financially valuable some degrees could be, not everyone feels college is necessary to get a job. Gailey said younger people are questioning getting a bachelor's degree. Gailey pointed to survey results of US adults from the Pew Research Center that highlight how people feel about the need for college.
"Roughly half (49%) say it's less important to have a four-year college degree today in order to get a well-paying job than it was 20 years ago," Pew Research Center said.
Gailey said while college is an investment, getting a bachelor's degree can generally pay off, especially in terms of long-term earnings, and "there are ways to lower those upfront costs of college." That can include attending community college and then transferring credits to a four-year school.
Gailey pointed to an analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of full-time workers and their pay that showed recent grads with a bachelor's who are between 22 and 27 years old had a median annual wage of $60,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, people in that age cohort with just a high-school diploma had a median of $36,000.
This higher median isn't just true for last year; the analysis showed the median annual wage for recent college grads was continuously higher than the median for those with only a high-school diploma in the same age group as the recent college graduates since 1990.
How did your choice of going or not going to college affect your career and finances? Reach out to this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com to share.