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- Glenn Hansen
  • 3 days ago • 409 1

  My political science major, would that fall into the "Communication Disorders" category?

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  - Tiny Hands Glenn Hansen
    • 3 days ago • 86 0

    *slow clap*

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  - Brittanyjski Glenn Hansen
    • 2 days ago • 30 0

    "Communication Disorders" is the term used to describe the study of speech, language, and swallowing disorders in order to become a speech-language-pathologist -- known to most as a "speech therapist." There is something that this article does not address though that is seriously misleading. In order to become a speech therapist, you also have to have a master's degree in communication disorders. As a 26-year-old with a bachelor's and master's degree in communication disorders, I am making $90,000 a year in a medical setting. Good thing I got that "least" lucrative degree....

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  - Mickmoon Glenn Hansen
    • 2 days ago • 12 0

    best comment.

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  - damnsalvation Glenn Hansen
    • 2 days ago • 5 0

    I would agree, but I never made that much money with my poli-sci degree.

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    - Jill Ion damnsalvation
      • a day ago • 0 0

      Most of the poli-sci majors I've met went on to law school.

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      - damnsalvation Jill Ion
        • a day ago • 7 0

        I did notice that... But I decided to keep my soul.
        Holding out for a better deal.

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  - Clinton Weir Glenn Hansen
    • 2 days ago • 3 0

    Funny. The full study report has PoliSci listed; the median earnings for that degree is $59k.

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    - damnsalvation Clinton Weir
      • a day ago • 2 0

      I think that means that there was an opening at $60, and one at $58.
      But maybe things have changed since I graduated.

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- Dawn Rouse
  • 3 days ago • 751 5

  I am a Professor of Early Childhood Education, and I am well aware of the abysmal pay earned by graduates. I was once that teacher earning 12K a year while caring for other people's children.

  More money is rarely the answer to attract people to the field. I, frankly, don't want to entrust our youngest citizens to people who are merely doing a job for the money.

  However, this list accurately reflects how utterly whacked out our value system is as a country.

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  - m s Dawn Rouse
    • 3 days ago • 121 0

    yep... i'm a postdoctoral researcher in biomedicine and I currently make just over 39k, which is actually not bad (Standard according to the NIH). i have a doctorate and have been in school well over a decade. While some professors and industry scientist make high salaries those positions are few and far between many either are stuck in postdoc hell or eventually leave science (academia is generally moving to off loading work onto temp faculty and postdoc instead of creating the traditional tenure-track positions)... Given what is happening with the NIH budget and the rate at which grants are being funded, I see things only getting much worst. Glad our congress still thinks the oil companies need subsidies though. I've thought about moving into engineering b/c of the better job prospects but the idea of once again being a student makes me a bit nauseated.

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    - cjb57 m s
      • 3 days ago • 34 0

      As another fellow trying to scrape a living together off of the NIH paylines, hearing this report on my drive home was depressing. Yes, I knew going to graduate school wasn't going to be the fast track to cash, but graduate school and postdoc stipends seem respectable to a freshly minted Bachelor--at least the degree isn't racking up the same kind of debt as med school. However, after an "average" time to degree of 5.5 years and the major life changes that often include starting a family along the way and 40k a year is a lot less attractive. I can't think of a degree that requires more education for less fiscal reward. And as M S alluded to, with as few PhDs going on to faculty positions as there are these day, these are no longer training positions so much as a way to exploit cheap available labor.

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    - damnsalvation m s
      • 3 days ago • 15 0

      Chasing NIH grants sounds like a terrible way to live. Why not go into the private sector? Get published AND paid.

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      - M Jones damnsalvation
        • 3 days ago • 40 0

        You might get paid more in the private sector, but you are working for corporate and very likely not pursuing the research that interests you. At least in academia, you can align your interests with your work. You won't make as much $, but you can follow your bliss.

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        - damnsalvation M Jones
          • 2 days ago • 10 0

          Oh, then there's no problem. If you're getting paid to do what you wanted to do anyway, it's all profit.

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        - m s M Jones
          • 12 hours ago • 0 0

          Well that also a bit of a lie. Sure some people manage to get a grant or two funded in what they like, or they happen to be interested in one of the popular topics so they get funding, but academic research is certainly NOT getting paid for doing what you love (as it once may have been). The bad joke in the biological sciences has been that if you want to get a grant funded, figure out a way to tie in the research to either cancer or to AIDS. At least I used to think this was a joke, until I help a buddy of mine rewrite a rejected fellowship application (he is in plant science) and pitch the study of epigenetic control pathways in Arabidopsis (mustard plant... a major plant model organism) as being important for cancer research (not THAT huge of a stretch but still). Guess what, he got the fellowship. Not that I'm not happy for my friend but frankly he should have gotten it based on the merit of his scientific proposal, and the implications for cancer or for god-knows what else would have been sorted out once the data came in.

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          - M Jones m s
            • 10 hours ago • 0 0

            NIH grants tend towards studies that identify biomarkers for disease. You are right, it's hard to find grant money. Good luck in your work.

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      - m s damnsalvation
        • 12 hours ago • 1 0

        Good luck with that. Most companies look at academic PhD CVs and toss them. i've had several friends get lucky and make the transition. Word of advise, make industry contacts and get set up for an internship pronto. Possibly skip the PhD and do a masters (easier to get in) and then once you're in with industry you can go back to school if you need to and usually have a job waiting for you on the other side. Of course none of this will be taught to you in a typical PhD program b/c they are just interested in you as slave labor. You certainly learn how to do science and how to be flexible and resilient (or you completely loose it) but most PhD programs approach "training" as if there is only the faculty career track and call everything else alternative, despite the fact that 9/10 graduating PhDs today will NOT become faculty. Just putting it out there in case a prospective PhD. student reads this and doesn't know what they're getting into (don't listen to the recruiting BS from the programs).

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  - George Cunningham Dawn Rouse
    • 3 days ago • 405 8

    Why is it whacked? Society really needs petroleum engineers. Apparently there are more than enough people with the skill set to be early childhood educators. It has nothing to do with the values of society. It has to do with supply and demand.

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    - endorendil ds George Cunningham
      • 3 days ago • 143 1

      Early childhood education is draining work. There aren't that many people cut out to do it for their entire careers. Doing it well is a different thing altogether, and the low pay reflects how little people understand the importance of the work - or can even tell when their kids are getting anything out of it. The supply isn't as big as you might think.

      The question of demand is interesting though. Many modern countries start schooling kids at an age between 2 and 3 - it comes naturally as part of supporting working parents. That kind of schooling is available in the US only from private, for-profit institutions, but it costs thousands of dollars per year. No wonder demand is low. And no wonder that social mobility is dropping.

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      - DamnYankee110 endorendil ds
        • 3 days ago • 128 2

        Whether or not there are people completely suited to doing the work isn't the point. I am working on my Master's degree in petroE, and, coincidentally enough, my wife is working on her Master's in ECE.

        While I recognize that her work does take time, she and I both agree that my field is incredibly more difficult, and as such, very few people are willing to put forth the effort, and of those, fewer still can grasp the information well enough.

        The real key is the difference in skill sets. ECE majors primarily require patience and a loving demeanor, paired with an ability to teach. While the trifecta is uncommon, there are a lot of people out there willing to enter the field, and therefore a lot of people looking for one job.

        PetroE majors are few and far between, and their work is such that very few people enter the field. Because there are a lot of jobs (insert any gas/oil company here) and very few people, the pay is very good.

        In short, supply and demand. Fewer jobs than people, low pay. More jobs than workforce, high pay. Engineering jobs in general are in high demand, so their pay is generally much higher.

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        - J Dubs DamnYankee110
          • 3 days ago • 173 0

          I think this is where the narrative gets off track.
          "Engineering jobs in general are in high demand, so their pay is generally much higher."

          What I think you're actually saying is that people who can perform engineering jobs WELL are in high demand, so their pay is generally higher. The trouble is that we do not value education, counseling, and human services as much as we do petroleum becuase there is no immediate profit in it, so we're willing to accept much lower, broader standards that allows the field to be open to "a lot of people out there willing to enter the field."

          If we valued those fields enough to change the criteria and minimum standards, then I think the field would tighten up very quickly.

          Pretty sure we still wouldn't be willing to pay for it, though.

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          - james v J Dubs
            • 2 days ago • 36 0

            In a slight defense of educators, a huge portion of your child's education rests with the parents who do not seem to be involved nearly as much as in the past. Chalk it up to moral decay or even a bit of ethnic value systems who don't value education on whole the same as other groups.

            Not being racist here at all, but there are some ethnic groups that can come here not speaking the language, be disliked overall by society, with zero money, yet within a single generation they prosper as others continue to languish. These groups value education above all else and it pays off in the financial side of life's equation. Look at eastern indians, asians, jews... all came here speaking a language other than english, were not welcomed with open arms, yet all thrive greatly today. I don't think it is because they have larger brains, but because their culture values education so highly while others do not.

            And to make up for cruddy parenting we often speak of lowering standards to give others a chance. You know what lowering standards really is? It's definitely a form of racism because it is the same as saying an ethnic group is really not up to the challenge of the rest of us. That helps no one.

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          - james v J Dubs
            • 2 days ago • 6 0

            I think I agree with you J Dubs, but the concept gets a bit fuzzy trying to determine who does the educating job well. Teachers loathe the idea of being 'graded' by how well their students are doing, and the union would never accept any grading plan. How can we tell how well a teacher is doing? It's pretty simple for engineers, because your boss can fire you. Not so with educators. They are impossible to fire. My wife works in HR at a school administration office and no matter which part of the country we live in, the story is the same. If you can make it a few years, you cannot ever be let go, no matter how poorly the kids are doing.

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        - Valency Hastings DamnYankee110
          • 2 days ago • 17 0

          Your assumption that people don't enter the field of PetroE because the don't have the skill set might be questionable. I didn't choose a higer-paying track that matched my skill set (in Advertising) and instead chose to take a much lower paying but less morally questionable job in publishing. The same dynamic could easily apply here.

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          - cthom2384 Valency Hastings
            • a day ago • 3 0

            I can agree that some people might be able to handle the schooling, and lack the skill sets required in the field. It is true though that Engineering is a very intimidating major and does require a lot of hard work. I believe supply and demand is a huge factor in this chart. I graduated as an EE and started off my major in Marketing & advertising. I changed majors because I realized that there were 50% of my classmates that were lazy. This led me to the realization that these people have the same chance at building a career with this major as I do. Some might even inherit great jobs from their parents. Entry level was the part of my career I was worried about. The only solution was to prove myself as a hard working student. Not by taking stupid classes like "Personal Effectiveness" or "individuals in society". I had to prove my worth so I focused on expanding my horizons with classes that will test my work ethic (Physics, Dynamics, Multi-variable Calculus, Linear Algebra,etc.) I have the ability and skill set to work in many fields. I could even teach Economics if given the time to master the field. It's not a matter of just skill, but the willingness to learn. If you do not try, you will never know what your potential is. My job as an engineer is to evolve everyday and continue to learn. Too many people settle, and I know this because I went a long time as a fearful and lazy person.

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      - Ron Aok endorendil ds
        • 3 days ago • 12 0

        In America education starts early also, if you have money. If your poor or middle class you wit till 5.

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        - GPeele8 Ron Aok
          • 2 days ago • 17 0

          My parents fell under the poor working class category, however they knew a good education was key, and they strove to provide us with one despite not having the money to pay for private school; in short for myself and my siblings education started well before the age of five. In addition, my mother would go to teacher supply stores for work books to supplement our "free" public education as well as made us read and write book reports throughout our summer vacations. My parents took pages from the success stories of people who grew up in poor households and still managed to do remarkably well later in life. The materials are there, the bias/social class barriers are down, what we lack are strong parents who are willing to take control of their children's learning environment and guide them in the direction towards success.

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    - Nate Kelley George Cunningham
      • 3 days ago • 120 1

      But it inherently does have to do with the values of society. It's the value we place on petroleum extraction, pharmaceuticals, and other raw materials extraction that creates the demand for workers in those fields, thereby driving average wages higher. Supply and demand doesn't eradicate value systems; it just provides a conduit through which our societal values are reflected, drawing more people to higher wage jobs and deterring others from lower paying ones--which are determined by a society's collective preferences (notice I didn't use the word "needs"; for instance, we don't "need" more petroleum in this country, just prefer it, because Americans love their SUV's and large homes, which need to be heated--again a shadow of the value system we share in this country).

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      - rhkennerly Nate Kelley
        • 2 days ago • 34 2

        I really disagree. We don't put a lot of value into it, but ECE and Education in general are a critical investment in the nation's future. Mat Miller in the "the Tyranny of Dead Ideas" even posits that we should pay teacher $100k per year and recruit from the very best of the academic crop.

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        - james v rhkennerly
          • 2 days ago • 29 0

          I would agree that we don't put as much value into education as we should. However, paying them more alone will solve nothing. Making the criteria much more difficult to obtain the degree would ensure only those really fit for the position make it through a program would cause a bit of a shortage, and pay would certainly climb. That is how it works for engineers, of which I am one. Perhaps I am naive, but I am positive I could gather credentials to teach, but almost no teachers could be engineers. Hence the shortage in my field.

          As a final confession, I would like to teach but the low pay stops me immediately, followed closely by the disgust I feel towards having to be part of the teacher's union which often does not seem to value much in the way of education. I feel I can make that statement as a very involved parent and witnessing some horrific educators (who cannot even string together a coherent email). The teachers union would never allow these people to be removed, short of committing a felony, and even then only if the newspaper were to find out.

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        - Loathomar rhkennerly
          • 16 hours ago • 0 0

          Really, if you want to know how to make a good primary education system, just look to see where there is already a good primary education system. The US spends about 33% more then the OECD average and Finland, with the best education system spends less then they average. Money is CLEARLY not the answer. Really US teachers already are paid more then teachers in Finland. There are only 3 countries in the entire world that spends more on their students, so by what measure are we not "put a lot of value into it".

          I don't thing our education system is good, but I can not see any reasonable argument for how it is a spending problem.

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      - N H Nate Kelley
        • 2 days ago • 21 1

        Things like education, social work etc.. are critical public good. The way you supply such public goods is by having thriving and profitable industries that create a lot of wealth - such as extraction, biotech, and high tech. You then take some of the proceeds from that wealth in the form of taxes and supply public goods.

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    - imKili George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 67 3

      No, society really does NOT "need petroleum engineers". We need solar engineers, we need wind engineers, we need engineers finding better ways to utilize clean and RENEWABLE energy.... not more people working to keep us destroying the planet with fossil fuels. Maybe they make so much because they're selling their souls to the petroleum devil.

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      - ZenBowman1 imKili
        • 2 days ago • 53 1

        This is factually incorrect. The majority of the world still runs on petroleum. While we all share the goal of moving away from petroleum, the reality is that were we to stop all petrol extraction tomorrow, the vast majority of humanity would perish. Petroleum engineers are doing an essential job, and it is through advances in the field that we are able to control the environmental costs of extraction.

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      - james v imKili
        • 2 days ago • 33 1

        You are letting your emotions or political views cloud your judgement. Petroleum is needed, desperately. No amount of renewable energy is going to keep your water flowing or lights turned on, or your transportation system in action. It may not be palatable to you, which I really do understand, but the fact is these people are needed.

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        - Alex Brendel james v
          • 2 days ago • 5 0

          RE:, "No amount of renewable energy is going to keep your water flowing or lights turned on, or your transportation system in action."

          Renewable energy via photovoltaics or wind turbines, combined with electric vehicles will keep transportation system in action, when we have enough of these alternative energies and vehicles in place.

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          - jumboshrimp29 Alex Brendel
            • 11 hours ago • 1 0

            No, james v's comment is correct, at least for the time being. The amount of electricity consumed by Americans already is staggeringly in the tens of quadrillions of BTUs annually (http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy..., and if the even greater energy of the transportation sector (http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/i... is added there is no way current renewable resources can keep up. With current potential production efficiency of 24% and assuming 8 hours/day year-round of the maximum sunlight available during the summer (which is a terrible assumption), we would need solar cells covering twice the area of Rhode Island to meet current demands (which increase dramatically every year). We certainly need development of renewable technologies, but renewable resources alone cannot provide for American energy use, much less the world.

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          - S.J. Baker Alex Brendel
            • a day ago • 1 0

            I think you'd have a hard time finding a renewable energy source in today's world that does not employ petroleum at some point in the process (raw material acquisition, manufacturing, deployment). And I don't just mean gasoline or electricity production.

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      - q x imKili
        • 2 days ago • 15 0

        To be fair, we need both. We need people to continue what we're doing as we discover what would be better; the problem is the politics of petroleum and the lack of investment for the other options. You can't just stop one thing without replacing it when it's become such a large part of the way we function, but we do need to start shifting ideas.

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      - Clinton Weir imKili
        • 2 days ago • 7 0

        Petroleum has many uses; we don't only burn the stuff in our gas tanks.

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    - simkatu George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 27 1

      We realize that it has to do with supply and demand. The point that he is making is that is whacked that consumers in America value cheaper oil a lot more than they value educating our children properly.

      We all understand that it's supply and demand that drives the salaries of some trades down and some other trades higher.

      We can help control the supply side by showing graphs like these to kids going to school, but controlling the demand side is much more difficult. People prefer having uneducated children and cheaper gas rather than educated children and more expensive gas. That may or may not be wacky to you, but it is understandable why some folks think it's wacky.

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      - tobint simkatu
        • 2 days ago • 27 0

        Your emphasis on gasoline as the reason for demand for petroleum is not aligned with the facts. You can complain that people don't value education, but petroleum is used more to produce plastics that are used in the computer/device you typed your condescending post into and which power and reduce costs for the expanding needs of the education system. People don't have a greater demand for oil than they do for education. People want heat. They want transportation that doesn't take away more of their paycheck than the food on their table. Speaking of food on their table, plastics used for food containers, food manufacturing, etc are all built from that oil. Because people desire these outcomes and fossil fuels currently are the best means by which to provide those outcomes, people consume them. That doesn't mean that they value education less. We transport our children to get their education in vehicles made with petroleum products on roads made with petroleum products that are gripped by tires made from petroleum products all while consuming fuel made by petroleum products. Those children learn lessons developed on computers made with petroleum products and shipped to stores made with petroleum products. Those children surf the web to do their homework on devices made with petroleum products. You can't say that we don't value education because we also value petroleum. You also can't say that we value oil more simply because those who know how to procure that oil is paid more -- and let's not forget that those who know how to procure that oil had to be educated in how to do so -- that's the very crux of this argument. You can only say that if you're educated in a skill that is in demand, and there is a low supply of people who are similarly educated, you make more. You can similarly say if you're educated in how to do something that many people know how to do, your skills will be less valuable.
        We can try to deflect from the supply / demand argument all we want by trying to make it mean that we don't like education, but that's just wrong.

        Just to add to this, take a look at the best / worst careers infographic:
        http://lifehacker.com/the-best...

        Oil Rig Workers are at the bottom of the list. Elementary school teachers are in the middle. If we valued simply oil, and not education, then the oil rig workers would be higher on the list.

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    - Chuck Conover George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 9 0

      Little to do with supply and demand. Petroleum and computers are high-profit areas. Finding someone good might make a company $1M per year. Education really only has one employer: the government, and there is no profit to be made, so basically it comes down to how much people are willing to be taxed. Even if we put all of our tax money currently spent on "defense" into education (which I think we should), there is still no profit to be made and a bad teacher won't produce any less money than a good teacher.

      Arizona, where I live, is all charter schools, where the money follows the child. So, a teacher's skill at reaching the student really does mean money because a parent can move schools very easily and there are many choices. I like the system, but apparently it is not making education better as AZ is 42nd in the country for education (depending on the report).
      http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/20...

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    - AlexBrendel George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 6 0

      Our value system IS whacked.

      Job salary should be based more on how important the job is to our society, more than it is now. Example:

      In my opinion, public school teachers are EXTREMELY important, because:

      If public school teachers do a good job, kids learn, and they are inspired. The students learn, graduate, get good jobs, and become productive members of society.

      If teachers do poorly, the students don't learn, they fail their classes, and don't graduate; What happens then? They slug their way through a poor paying job, unable to pay living expenses. They become thieves, or drug dealers. A life of crime that leads to jail. Jailing citizens, a burden on society; costs more to someone, than to send him/her to college!!!!

      Now consider a professional athlete. Barry basketball player does a great job...he helps the team win, and the franchise makes big money.

      Barry does a bad job, the team loses, and Barry gets dropped. The franchise doesn't make as much money. So what???

      In my opinion, professional athletes are not so important as their current high salaries indicate.

      Our value system is whacked.

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    - Watson Childs George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 5 0

      Or maybe early childhood (and other) education pays low because education in general like the rest of infrastructure is robbed so we can give tax breaks to the rich and middle upper class.

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    - Kevin M George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 5 0

      There is a distinct difference between quality of life and earning power. While the report shows how each major impacts the Economy, it does not show how each major impact the quality of life of the person who studies it. As an Archaeology major, I can attest to the high quality of life I experienced working in my major field of study, despite its insignificant impact on the economy.

      With regard to supply and demand, sometimes society should plan the economy rather than allow the economy to design the society. Does it make economic sense that a plastic surgeon should make more money than a family practitioner, or an emergency room nurse? Yes. But who would you rather have in a pinch?

      Specialist knowledge is very important (and therefor very lucrative), but there is added value in having good people between the parents and the high-dollar salary at the end of the educational line. Incentivising the in-between jobs will lure better people into those positions and produce better specialists, thus adding value to the whole economy.

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    - Sandy Tobin George Cunningham
      • 2 days ago • 4 0

      I agree with you George and also comparing the salaries of FULL TIME private sector workers who almost always work more that 40 hours/week to teacher's salaries is ridiculous!!!!!! Teachers would not only be considered part time in the private sector but since most part time workers are not eligible for benefit, they wouldn't have benefits like sick pay, health insurance and a fabulous pension plan. All of this in part of compensation and needs to be taken into consideration when talking about compensation. My husband has a degree and DOES NOT get the 15 days of paid sick time teachers get in my state. That's 3 more weeks of pay. So, did NPR take this all of this into consideration?? I doubt it. So, I am VERY disappointed in this so called survey!

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  - Wayne Roper Dawn Rouse
    • 3 days ago • 73 2

    I agree. Although it is very important to have engineers and doctors, I would rather have people not go after those careers only for the love of money.

    More money more problems.

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    - Matthew Fulghum Wayne Roper
      • 3 days ago • 187 6

      Automatically presuming that engineers and doctors are going into those careers for the love of money is about as rational as presuming the converse: that those who don't go into those fields hate hate hate it.

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