If you are headed to college this fall, or starting to think about where you might apply or what field you might be looking into, consider the newly released lists of both the most profitable majors and the majors that will net you the least amount of money over your career.
The Highest Paying College Majors
- Pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences and administration ($108,000 median salary)
- Electrical engineering ($104,000 median salary)
- Civil engineering ($97,000 median salary)
- Mechanical engineering ($96,000 median salary)
- Computer engineering ($93,000 median salary)
- Computer science ($92,000 median salary)
- Chemical engineering ($92,000 median salary)
- Industrial and manufacturing engineering ($91,000 median salary)
- Economics ($88,000 median salary)
- Management information systems and statistics ($87,000 median salary)
Unfortunately for those who are looking to be in fields that help people, the options are not as lucrative. The lowest-paying college major in the state is social work, which has a $49,000 median salary, according to the data. The next lowest-paying majors in New Jersey are: drama and theater arts; elementary education; and physical fitness, parks, recreation and leisure. They all have a median salary of $54,000. Family and consumer sciences, fine arts, foreign language studies, general education, language and drama education, psychology, and social science or history teacher education were the next lowest-paying. They all have a median salary of $56,000 in New Jersey. Apparently doing positive things for the world and for others does not reap the same financial benefits, but must have other intrinsic, internal rewards or people would not join these professions. So there you have it, a short and sweet list of careers to look into (or to avoid).
(Career data taken from Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com ).
