I saw a headline on Yahoo! News regarding "Worst-Paying College Degrees" and I immediately became curious. The article lists seven majors/careers with the lowest median annual salaries in the United States:
- Child and Family Studies (Median Annual Salary: $37,700)
- Social Work (Median Annual Salary: $45,300)
- Elementary Education (Median Annual Salary: $46,000)
- Human Development (Median Annual Salary: $47,800)
- Special Education (Median Annual Salary: $48,900)
- Culinary Arts (Median Annual Salary: $49,700)
- Athletic Training (Median Annual Salary: $49,800)
- Engineering (Median mid-career pay: $88,600-$155,000)
- Computer Science (Median mid-career pay: $97,900)
- Physics (Median mid-career pay: $101,000)
- General/Applied Mathematics (Median mid-career pay: $89,900-$98,600)
- Economics (Median mid-career pay: $94,700)
- Management Information Systems (Median mid-career pay: $88,200)
- Finance (Median mid-career pay: $87,300)
Without the solid foundation of health (athletic training, nutritionists), education (early, secondary, and special), and advocacy for voices often lost in the larger population (social work, child/family services) our country cannot continue to flourish and grow into the future. By reducing the salaries for individuals in these professions to near poverty levels in some cases, the incentive for new generations of college students to enter these fields is diminished.
American Exceptionalism argues that our country is exceptional because of our unique foundations. However, with the current trends outlined above, the "by the people, for the people" philosophy that defined the American Exceptionalism ideal is falling to the wayside. Our nation is focusing on economics, advancing technology, and research-based professions rather than creating an educated, healthy overall population necessary for our future. This is a risky path to pursue, for the well-being of the population and the country at large.
I agree with you about the fact that it isn't right that teachers are paid less because they are the ones that inspire students to become engineers and whatnot (I'm an example of this idea). But the thing about engineers and physicists is that they build the technology that will take this nation to the future and, as "The Body Electric" stated, technology is one of those things that we look to in order to make ourselves better as a people. This also ties into the whole American Exceptionalism because we believe we are the best, and Americans think that these technologies will help perfect them, and there is nothing better than perfect...or so we think. I'm not saying not to discredit engineers because I am one, because I also believe that it is a problem that teachers are paid so little, but we really need to take a look at a different group of people for this. Celebrities, athletes and CEO's all get paid more than even the engineers could ever dream of, and what do they do to advance our nation? They entertain or own the companies that employ the people that make the differences. These are where we should change our direction to.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am sorry about being late too!
The majors that are in the sciences do a lot more for society than what I think you're giving them credit for. Every road, building,
ReplyDeletepiece of technology and even every product is the result of those majors you listed that are paid the most. The things these professions
create are as you put "for the people". Everything that they research and create goes to creating a better world. An engineer creates a
new machine that can create goods like phones and laptops at a more efficient cost and time. Society will benefit from that. A physicists
researches the benefits of graphene, and now society has the strongest material known to man with an endless amount of applications,
from circuits to anti-bacterial applications. Imagine how much society would benefit if we could fully use graphene. I could go on for
all of those majors, but then this post would become way too large.
Now another aspect to these majors are that they are difficult, much more so relative to the worst paying majors as well. Now this is a
subjective matter, but when looking at articles regarding this, they tend to say that the majors that pay more tend to be the most difficult
(Forbes article displaying this: http://tinyurl.com/c9ec3x4). Naturally the harder it is, the less people will accomplish it. So while the
demand for these degrees are high, there is a relatively low supply of them. So if one were to put graduates of these majors on a supply and
demand curve (economics), there will be an excess of demand with a shortage of supply causing the market price to rise
(Also stated in the article).
The problem with the worst paying majors would be the opposite if graphed on the curves once again, except teachers. Teachers are a different
case that depends on policy.
In my opinion, the fact these majors are paid more is directly connected to American exceptionalism. If the U.S. has the greatest technology,
researches and creates the most innovative inventions and creates the greatest economy in the world, through the graduates of the degrees that pay
the most, then we are enforcing that America is the best country in the world.
Great conversation! Emily's analysis is spot on: while American Exceptionalism persists, the content of that idea shifts from Manifest Destiny to American Imperialism to America's ostensibly technological and scientific prowess. I take two issues: one, Roman, de la Pena's argument wasn't that technology is how we Americans move forward but instead that Americans are obsessed with technology, and think it will move us forward. So in a way, you're sort of falling into her very trap, you and Shervin - you also want technology to fix everything.
ReplyDeleteMy other issue: no one has really noted that these are exceptionally gendered fields. So Shervin, while it's true that there are news articles talking about how hard science and technology and engineering are, that tells us much more about discourse around these fields than it does about how the fields actually are. These details also ignore the similarities between the worst paying jobs, gender, and the fields that are increasing the most. It would be great if America were actually producing all engineers and technologists (well, pretty great) but we're not - we're a country of service industries, particularly care and health care industries. So all the jobs listed by Emily are not just low paying, they're not just gendered, they're also aspects of some of the few consistently growing industries in America.
How did you come to the conclusion that I want technology to fix everything? Where did I about talk fixing something, or even a problem that needed to be fixed with technology?
ReplyDeleteAlso when you say " how the fields actually are" are you referring to how difficult they are in the real world?
And lastly, when you say that those jobs are the few growing industries are you implying that fields in the sciences aren't growing?
The original technology comment was in response to Roman's reading of the de la Pena text. However, in your argument, "An engineer creates a new machine that can create goods like phones and laptops at a more efficient cost and time. Society will benefit from that." This is an assumption that technological advancement is what's best for society at large, as well as all of it's members.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say "how the fields actually are," I mean exactly that - so the discourse around education in this country is that (a) when we say education, we mean 4 year college education; and (b) difficulty of work (however that's measured) is how the market, or our society, rewards hard work, rather than privilege. But what does that mean, "how hard the fields are?" How long students study? How long they claim they study? Not only does the conversation discount scale in terms of how much people are making, and how much more some fields make than others, it also discounts difficulty of work in relationship to systemic and structural inequalities - do you have kids at home, work full time, and/or need to take public transportation to school? do you have access to a full time education in the first place? How does the ideology of the self-made man, and meritocracy more broadly, apply to these ideas?
Finally, the sciences are absolutely growing, particularly in relationship to academic, pharmaceutical, industrial and technological jobs, and particularly in northern California. As a whole, for the nation, the top hiring industries right now are medicine, education, service, and general care. Notably, many of these AREN'T four year college degree kinds of jobs (think of the strata of medical and home care service jobs, for example, that are non-MDs and require certification and licensing, rather than bachelor's kinds of degrees). All I'm saying, in other words, is that there are many ideologies that underline all of these articulations of what America should value and for what reasons.
(there's an article here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-top-10-industries-to-find-jobs-during-a-recession-2011-1?op=1)
I said that we look to technology as a way to make ourselves better, because de la pena talks about how we use technology in order to perfect ourselves, which obviously isn't true but that is where the obsession that you talked about comes into play. I was just making a correlation between this want of technology and the difference in pay because it is the engineers and the scientists that are actually creating the new technologies that we believe will help us. Regardless of the technology actually moving us forward or us just believing that it will, it all still just comes down to Americans wanting the technology because it will mover them forward (so we think). Yes, teachers also advance our nation, probably more than engineers and scientists do in a way because they are teaching the new generation, but it is this fixation that we have on technology as being the driving force of development that makes us believe it will always help, and therefore resulting in the difference of pay, at least that's what I believe is our excuse for it (excuse might not be the right word for it). So, in a way, it's the same thing in the end regardless of technology doing anything or not.
ReplyDelete