Is Art One of the Worst Majors for Success?

Kiplinger published the "Worst College Majors for Your Career." And if you're thinking of a major in art, you must take a look at these rankings.

	Worst Major	Unemployment Rate for Recent Grads	Median Salary for Recent Grads	Likely to Work in Retail (Compared to Norm 1.0)
Anthropology	1	10.5%	$ 28,000	2.1
Fine Arts	2	12.6%	$ 30,000	1.8
Film & Photography	3	12.9%	$ 30,000	2.6
Philosophy & Religious Studies	4	10.8%	$ 30,000	2.0
Graphic Design	5	11.8%	$ 32,000	0.6
Studio Arts	6	11.1%	$ 35,900	2.3
Liberal Arts	7	9.2%	$ 30,000	1.8
Drama & Theater Arts	8	7.8%	$ 26,000	2.1
Sociology	9	8.6%	$ 32,000	1.4
English	10	9.2%	$ 32,000	1.4

Note:  the Kiplinger article contains even more data.

Kiplinger's should probably have titled their rankings:  the "Worst College Majors for Finding Jobs and for Making Decent Money."  Only measuring the value of a degree by the money you'll earn is a bit narrow.  Clearly, getting to do what you love for 40 hours a week for 40 years will improve your life happiness.  Yet, you would be a fool to belittle the importance of money, earnings, and job prospects in choosing your major. 

Six out of Kiplinger's ten "worst college majors" include artistic endeavors, ranging from acting (Drama & Theater Arts), to writing (English), and finally to making pretty pictures or 3D things (Graphic Design, Photo & Film, Studio Arts, and Fine Arts).  Majors that do not appear on this list tend to require less math and scientific rigor (with the exception of Anthropology and Sociology, but no science-only major made the list). I think that this absence underscores a rarely mentioned reality about many students who choose the "worst college majors."

First, the majors that made the list are generally easier than many other degrees.  Second, these majors are generally more fun.  Consequently, they attract many students who: 1) can't handle math and sciences, 2) love a good time, and 3) don't really understand what it means to invest in a college education. 

Thus, the Kiplinger's list would probably look very different if we could somehow remove from it the "bad" students – those who resist hard intellectual work (the lazy bums), those who mostly treat college as a great party (the party animals), and finally those who think it's cool to be an artist, but really have nothing to communicate or don't have a deep love for art (the posers).

If you don't recognize yourself in the descriptions above, your ability to succeed in an artistic career after college will look better than the depressing statistic in Kiplinger's study.  While choosing art as a career nearly guarantees more economic challenges than other professions, if you work hard (to be the best artist you can be and to sell your art), society will see you in a better light and generally reward you for it.