pingpong2 said:

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okaydo said:

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My point is your Letters & Science degree doesn't have to doom you to certain jobs. Your career is what you make of it (via internships and other things). Not what your major makes of it.

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There are always going to be exceptions, but the data doesn't lie, and statistically speaking humanities majors make significantly less money. When we talk about the entire population at large, you would in fact be "dooming" the vast majority to certain jobs (and certain income levels)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/uc-csu-earnings/

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pingpong2 said:

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okaydo said:

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My point is your Letters & Science degree doesn't have to doom you to certain jobs. Your career is what you make of it (via internships and other things). Not what your major makes of it.

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There are always going to be exceptions, but the data doesn't lie, and statistically speaking humanities majors make significantly less money. When we talk about the entire population at large, you would in fact be "dooming" the vast majority to certain jobs (and certain income levels)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/uc-csu-earnings/

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Quote:

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Computer science and engineering majors between the ages of 23 and 25 who were working full time earned an average of $61,744 in 2017, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. This was 37 percent higher than the average starting salary of $45,032 earned by people who majored in history or the social sciences (which include economics, political science and sociology). Large differences in starting salary by major held for both men and women.

Men majoring in computer science or engineering roughly doubled their starting salaries by age 40, to an average of $124,458. Yet earnings growth is even faster in other majors, and some catch up completely. By age 40, the average salary of all male college graduates was $111,870, and social science and history majors earned $131,154 an average that is lifted, in part, by high-paying jobs in management, business and law.

The story was similar for women. Those with applied STEM majors earned nearly 50 percent more than social science and history majors at ages 23 to 25, but only 10 percent more by ages 38 to 40.

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concernedparent said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Last fiscal year, Utah legislated a 10% cut to the funds for classroom instruction and moved the funds to a separate line item called "strategic reinvestment." The public colleges can have the cut money "reinvested" back by demonstrating that the funds will be spent on popular and "high return matrix" majors that higher paying jobs, such as business or engineering. The legislators have not been subtle in saying the purpose is for the State to get a better return on its money by a better educated work force, meeting students needs better, and to graduate students on a more timely basis. Moreover, tenured professors can be terminated in connection with this reallocation process. The legislation still requires the schools provide general education classes and the regulations are expected to say no departments should be terminated. The example that is given is you may not be able to be a French major at a Utah college, but you can take classes in French.

Not mentioned in the article is that the cuts and efficiency provisions comes as enrollment has increased dramatically at every public college and university in Utah, at a time when many public colleges are now seeing declines in enrollment or expecting declines in enrollment as age demographics shift. With budget issues, many public schools have had to merge programs or lay off non-tenured faculty. A lot of this Utah enrollment increase has come from out of state students, which may be driving some of the legislation.

Things are not as easy as reallocating budgets. Most of the schools are suffering net cuts because they don't want to eliminate tenured faculty, the holy grail of college teaching. Another concern, particularly at the UofU, is that the schools are also research institutions, and the importance of faculty members often depends on what they publish, not what they teach. Many faculty are concerned that workforce alignment is not an appropriate measure to evaluate a university's success. Meawhile, Utah schools seem be losing public funding while their enrollments increase.

Utah State is losing $17.3M in state funding. Here's how it ...Utah Public Radiohttps://www.upr.org utah-news utah-state-is-losing-...

A school like Cal already is dominated by STEM and business majors - the majority of students are STEM and business majors and another 18% are in double or multi-discipline majors which include a STEM or business major. Around only 1/3 of the students have a humanities major (including double and interdisciplinary majors). There are several groups that tend to humanities degrees such as athletes.

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I just retired after about 50 years of practice as a
lawyer. I have a B.A and an M.A in history and a J.D. all three from Cal. Here are a few of the things I have learned.

...

I will provide one area where current "high return majors" might not retain their "high return" status. there are reports and projections that Artificial Intelligence will make many current high-paying tech jobs and business jobs obsolete in the near future.

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We're going to have bigger societal problems if that becomes a reality. Frankly, few jobs, especially entry and mid-level jobs will be safe. If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do.

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okaydo said:

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College is supposed to teach you to think critically.

But the emphasis on salaries makes it seem like it's supposed to be trade school.

Of course, certain majors will result in bigger salaries and certain majors will result in lower salaries.

But I knew an English major who worked for a tech company specializing in security patches. One of my poli sci friends was a manager at Google.

The late longtime CEO of YouTube was an English major, as was the founder of Alibaba.

Hell, even Mark Zuckerberg studied psychology (with computer science).

My point is your Letters & Science degree doesn't have to doom you to certain jobs. Your career is what you make of it (via internships and other things). Not what your major makes of it.

But it sucks that this emphasis on science (and the emergence of certain people) have made things like studying history and English seem horrible.

I recently had a conversation with somebody who hated Oppenheimer because it didn't focus enough on the science aspect of Oppenheimer's story. But politics and history are as or more important than the science in telling his story.

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concernedparent said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Last fiscal year, Utah legislated a 10% cut to the funds for classroom instruction and moved the funds to a separate line item called "strategic reinvestment." The public colleges can have the cut money "reinvested" back by demonstrating that the funds will be spent on popular and "high return matrix" majors that higher paying jobs, such as business or engineering. The legislators have not been subtle in saying the purpose is for the State to get a better return on its money by a better educated work force, meeting students needs better, and to graduate students on a more timely basis. Moreover, tenured professors can be terminated in connection with this reallocation process. The legislation still requires the schools provide general education classes and the regulations are expected to say no departments should be terminated. The example that is given is you may not be able to be a French major at a Utah college, but you can take classes in French.

Not mentioned in the article is that the cuts and efficiency provisions comes as enrollment has increased dramatically at every public college and university in Utah, at a time when many public colleges are now seeing declines in enrollment or expecting declines in enrollment as age demographics shift. With budget issues, many public schools have had to merge programs or lay off non-tenured faculty. A lot of this Utah enrollment increase has come from out of state students, which may be driving some of the legislation.

Things are not as easy as reallocating budgets. Most of the schools are suffering net cuts because they don't want to eliminate tenured faculty, the holy grail of college teaching. Another concern, particularly at the UofU, is that the schools are also research institutions, and the importance of faculty members often depends on what they publish, not what they teach. Many faculty are concerned that workforce alignment is not an appropriate measure to evaluate a university's success. Meawhile, Utah schools seem be losing public funding while their enrollments increase.

Utah State is losing $17.3M in state funding. Here's how it ...Utah Public Radiohttps://www.upr.org utah-news utah-state-is-losing-...

A school like Cal already is dominated by STEM and business majors - the majority of students are STEM and business majors and another 18% are in double or multi-discipline majors which include a STEM or business major. Around only 1/3 of the students have a humanities major (including double and interdisciplinary majors). There are several groups that tend to humanities degrees such as athletes.

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I just retired after about 50 years of practice as a
lawyer. I have a B.A and an M.A in history and a J.D. all three from Cal. Here are a few of the things I have learned.

...

I will provide one area where current "high return majors" might not retain their "high return" status. there are reports and projections that Artificial Intelligence will make many current high-paying tech jobs and business jobs obsolete in the near future.

---

We're going to have bigger societal problems if that becomes a reality. Frankly, few jobs, especially entry and mid-level jobs will be safe. If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do.

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wifeisafurd said:

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My own two cents as some one who was a business/econ undergrad at Cal and picked up a JD/MBA as well:

After about 15 years out of grad school, no one asks you about your degrees or where you went to school. Either you have become somewhat accomplished at what you do, or no one pays much attention to you, With certain exceptions like academia or highly specialized fields, you either have the the skills to learn your craft and the interpersonal skills to succeed, or you don't become accompanied. Many talented people fall into the trap of treating work like school. Technical skills and regurgitation of what you learned are not enough. You can't rely on a textbook or a teacher to educate you once you leave school,

The most successful people still are bullish on undergraduate education. They typically say use college to develop good work habits and certain skills, and take a broad range to classes to become worldly, even in grad school, and then move on to to what makes you succeed after school. School isn't going to teach you to become good at business or at a trade no matter what the Utah legislature thinks. Sure, businesses often just look at degrees or schools as an imprecise method for weeding out too many candidates for entry level positions. Many (most?) of the wealthiest people didn't graduate college or didn't graduate from a top school, and they didn't let that hold them back. That doesn't even begin to cover most successful people - regardless of wealth. Take a look at the richest and most successful you know, and odds are the majority of them had a rather humble higher education background (ignore this if you are in academia). My favorite comment on the topic is Mark Cuban calling a Stanford MBA a waste of time on Shark Tank (he apparently later called all MBAs a waste of time). Obviously, if you need a certain degree to practice your advocation, like medicine or law, you do that. But don't ever assume that will by itself make you good at your chosen profession.

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GivemTheAxe said:

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concernedparent said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Last fiscal year, Utah legislated a 10% cut to the funds for classroom instruction and moved the funds to a separate line item called "strategic reinvestment." The public colleges can have the cut money "reinvested" back by demonstrating that the funds will be spent on popular and "high return matrix" majors that higher paying jobs, such as business or engineering. The legislators have not been subtle in saying the purpose is for the State to get a better return on its money by a better educated work force, meeting students needs better, and to graduate students on a more timely basis. Moreover, tenured professors can be terminated in connection with this reallocation process. The legislation still requires the schools provide general education classes and the regulations are expected to say no departments should be terminated. The example that is given is you may not be able to be a French major at a Utah college, but you can take classes in French.

Not mentioned in the article is that the cuts and efficiency provisions comes as enrollment has increased dramatically at every public college and university in Utah, at a time when many public colleges are now seeing declines in enrollment or expecting declines in enrollment as age demographics shift. With budget issues, many public schools have had to merge programs or lay off non-tenured faculty. A lot of this Utah enrollment increase has come from out of state students, which may be driving some of the legislation.

Things are not as easy as reallocating budgets. Most of the schools are suffering net cuts because they don't want to eliminate tenured faculty, the holy grail of college teaching. Another concern, particularly at the UofU, is that the schools are also research institutions, and the importance of faculty members often depends on what they publish, not what they teach. Many faculty are concerned that workforce alignment is not an appropriate measure to evaluate a university's success. Meawhile, Utah schools seem be losing public funding while their enrollments increase.

Utah State is losing $17.3M in state funding. Here's how it ...Utah Public Radiohttps://www.upr.org utah-news utah-state-is-losing-...

A school like Cal already is dominated by STEM and business majors - the majority of students are STEM and business majors and another 18% are in double or multi-discipline majors which include a STEM or business major. Around only 1/3 of the students have a humanities major (including double and interdisciplinary majors). There are several groups that tend to humanities degrees such as athletes.

---

I just retired after about 50 years of practice as a
lawyer. I have a B.A and an M.A in history and a J.D. all three from Cal. Here are a few of the things I have learned.

...

I will provide one area where current "high return majors" might not retain their "high return" status. there are reports and projections that Artificial Intelligence will make many current high-paying tech jobs and business jobs obsolete in the near future.

---

We're going to have bigger societal problems if that becomes a reality. Frankly, few jobs, especially entry and mid-level jobs will be safe. If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do.

---

I agree and I disagree with certain of your conclusions:
"If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do."

Yes there are a number of things that AI can do that a junior associate presently do. such as preparing the first draft of a form contract.

AI can also assist in the legal research provided that the research is done using the standard research tools like West Law and Lexis.


But there are many things that AI cannot do.
1. Heavy duty legal research and analysis that is relevant to the facts and legal issues at hand. AI can't "think" like a human. It can come up with words and phrases that the searching attorney deems relevant. But I would not trust AI to decide what words and phrases are relevant. (unless you have a simple run of the mill type lawsuit. Where the legal issues have been thoroughly briefed in written case law and are not subject to doubt of argument.)

2. AI can speed up due diligence if there are mounds of documents to be reviewed. AI can be useful in sifting through the mounds of documents and removing those that are clearly irrelevant. But i would not trust all my due diligence to AI. There are varying interpretations that might be applied to the same facts, circumstances and words whether in a contract or in connection with legal statutes and precedent. [Remember Bill Clinton's effort to define what the word "is" meant.]

3. AI can be helpful in taking care of form pleadings and form motions on common legal issues (such as discovery motions) . But a real live person must make the decision on any substantive motion on a material point.

You don't have to believe me. There are many State and Federal court decisions that have sanctioned attorneys and law firms for relying too heavily on AI to do the legal work for them. Some of the sanctions have imposed heavy monetary sanctions. As many courts have held, AI can be a tool for an attorney; but it should never replace an attorneys review and judgment on all important matters. The courts leave it up to the attorney to try to determine what are the important matters.

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concernedparent said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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concernedparent said:

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GivemTheAxe said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Last fiscal year, Utah legislated a 10% cut to the funds for classroom instruction and moved the funds to a separate line item called "strategic reinvestment." The public colleges can have the cut money "reinvested" back by demonstrating that the funds will be spent on popular and "high return matrix" majors that higher paying jobs, such as business or engineering. The legislators have not been subtle in saying the purpose is for the State to get a better return on its money by a better educated work force, meeting students needs better, and to graduate students on a more timely basis. Moreover, tenured professors can be terminated in connection with this reallocation process. The legislation still requires the schools provide general education classes and the regulations are expected to say no departments should be terminated. The example that is given is you may not be able to be a French major at a Utah college, but you can take classes in French.

Not mentioned in the article is that the cuts and efficiency provisions comes as enrollment has increased dramatically at every public college and university in Utah, at a time when many public colleges are now seeing declines in enrollment or expecting declines in enrollment as age demographics shift. With budget issues, many public schools have had to merge programs or lay off non-tenured faculty. A lot of this Utah enrollment increase has come from out of state students, which may be driving some of the legislation.

Things are not as easy as reallocating budgets. Most of the schools are suffering net cuts because they don't want to eliminate tenured faculty, the holy grail of college teaching. Another concern, particularly at the UofU, is that the schools are also research institutions, and the importance of faculty members often depends on what they publish, not what they teach. Many faculty are concerned that workforce alignment is not an appropriate measure to evaluate a university's success. Meawhile, Utah schools seem be losing public funding while their enrollments increase.

Utah State is losing $17.3M in state funding. Here's how it ...Utah Public Radiohttps://www.upr.org utah-news utah-state-is-losing-...

A school like Cal already is dominated by STEM and business majors - the majority of students are STEM and business majors and another 18% are in double or multi-discipline majors which include a STEM or business major. Around only 1/3 of the students have a humanities major (including double and interdisciplinary majors). There are several groups that tend to humanities degrees such as athletes.

---

I just retired after about 50 years of practice as a
lawyer. I have a B.A and an M.A in history and a J.D. all three from Cal. Here are a few of the things I have learned.

...

I will provide one area where current "high return majors" might not retain their "high return" status. there are reports and projections that Artificial Intelligence will make many current high-paying tech jobs and business jobs obsolete in the near future.

---

We're going to have bigger societal problems if that becomes a reality. Frankly, few jobs, especially entry and mid-level jobs will be safe. If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do.

---

I agree and I disagree with certain of your conclusions:
"If AI can replace high-paying tech and business jobs, it can certainly do doc review, find relevant case law, draft motions, do due diligence, and all the other things that junior associates making $250k+ a year do."

Yes there are a number of things that AI can do that a junior associate presently do. such as preparing the first draft of a form contract.

AI can also assist in the legal research provided that the research is done using the standard research tools like West Law and Lexis.


But there are many things that AI cannot do.
1. Heavy duty legal research and analysis that is relevant to the facts and legal issues at hand. AI can't "think" like a human. It can come up with words and phrases that the searching attorney deems relevant. But I would not trust AI to decide what words and phrases are relevant. (unless you have a simple run of the mill type lawsuit. Where the legal issues have been thoroughly briefed in written case law and are not subject to doubt of argument.)

2. AI can speed up due diligence if there are mounds of documents to be reviewed. AI can be useful in sifting through the mounds of documents and removing those that are clearly irrelevant. But i would not trust all my due diligence to AI. There are varying interpretations that might be applied to the same facts, circumstances and words whether in a contract or in connection with legal statutes and precedent. [Remember Bill Clinton's effort to define what the word "is" meant.]

3. AI can be helpful in taking care of form pleadings and form motions on common legal issues (such as discovery motions) . But a real live person must make the decision on any substantive motion on a material point.

You don't have to believe me. There are many State and Federal court decisions that have sanctioned attorneys and law firms for relying too heavily on AI to do the legal work for them. Some of the sanctions have imposed heavy monetary sanctions. As many courts have held, AI can be a tool for an attorney; but it should never replace an attorneys review and judgment on all important matters. The courts leave it up to the attorney to try to determine what are the important matters.

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This is all true but your analysis is just as applicable to the other professions you mentioned. Sure, grunt work coding and basic pitchbooks like entry-level programmers and first year banking analysts do may eventually be replaced by AI, but how about strategy and high-level decision-making done by senior programmers and managing directors?

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HearstMining said:

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Some thoughts on the topic:

• With a 40 year career in IT, I can tell you that not everybody has the acumen to write code. I was about average and over time enjoyed other aspects of the job much more. So I can't believe that all these CS programs and even worse, "coding camps", are churning out great software developers and I'm sure more than a few grads will hate coding for a living.
• As a Cal engineering grad (49 years ago!), the most useful thing I learned was how to take a big obtuse problem, break it down into smaller more digestible problems, then solve those.
• Years ago, several colleagues and I discussed the VALUE OF COLLEGE in general and concluded that, at least at a big school like Cal, it's requiring you to LEARN INDEPENDENTLY - to assimilate large amounts of information, distill the valid and relevant parts, and apply it when needed. We saw that many (not all) HS-only employees who've learned their job via OJT have difficulty if their responsibilities change drastically, while college grads frequently can adjust better. Thirty years ago, companies would provide some developmental training - but now they just say "figure it out quickly or we'll find somebody else who can".
• Call me a cynic, but "creativity" is wildly overrated as a value in one's career. The vast majority of us don't start out as (and likely never become) entrepreneurs. We work in organizations and you've got to go way up the ladder before anybody gives you a "clean sheet of paper" for your ideas. Basically, you're rewarded for implementing somebody else's ideas. You may get to figure out the details, but "creativity" is limited to accomplishing something with less time, resources, and cooperation than you'd like - it's that subset of "creativity called "resourcefulness". Every Cal grad who ever had to manage their academic workload is familiar with this.

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