Social Science=Student Debt

College graduates who inhaled the exotic curricula their alma maters offer up are learning a hard lesson: Nobody really cares about them off campus. “If you major in accounting or engineering, you’re pretty likely to get a return on your investment,” economist Richard Vedder told  Sarah Kaufman of the Washington Post. “If you’re majoring in anthropology or social work or education, the rate on return is going to be a good deal lower, on average.”

“I’ve talked to some of my own students who’ve graduated and who are working in grocery stores or Wal-Mart,” he said. “The fellow who cut my tree down had a master’s degree and was an honors grad.” Lindsay McCluskey serves as president of the United States Student Association but has apparently run into the trend of which Vedder speaks.

“A recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she majored in anthropology, McCluskey is paying down a $20,000 student loan,” Kaufman reports. “She thinks it will probably take her a decade to dig out of that hole—while the balance is accumulating interest—because she can’t afford to make more than the minimum monthly payments.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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