The bachelor’s degree—long a ticket to the American middle class—is losing its luster in the U.S. job market.
As Bloomberg reports, an unpublished analysis by Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce finds that wages for college graduates across many majors have fallen since the 2007-09 recession. Young job seekers appear to be the biggest losers.
The analysis is based on U.S. Census bureau data, which show that what you study in college matters. Chemical and computer engineering majors have held down some of the best wages since the recession, earning at least $60,000 a year for entry level positions. Meanwhile, the paychecks of business and science graduates have fallen.
A biology major at the start of his or her career earned an average yearly salary of $31,000 in 2015, down $4,000 from five years earlier.
“It has been like this for the past five, six years now. It’s a little depressing,” says Ban Cheah, a Georgetown research professor who compiled the data. Cheah says workers should pursue a graduate-level degree to boost earning potential.
A 2016 National Bureau of Economic Research paper by economist Robert Valletta says the economic premium of a bachelor’s flattened after the recession. Among the factors at play are advances in technology and automation, which are not only taking away U.S. manufacturing jobs, but also having an impact on white collar workers.
