College dreams: Should your kid major in psychology? Cannabis studies?

Colleges are selling dreams to naive 18-year-olds who don't understand higher education or the job market, writes James Andrews, who teaches business at Ohlone College in California. "They pitch degrees like products, emphasizing prestige and potential while downplaying the risks of dropping out or ending up underemployed."

Photo: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

Students need to know the odds of finishing a degree, what jobs it qualifies graduates for and what those jobs pay over time, writes Andrews. They should know how many graduates move on to relevant professional jobs, and how many have to settle for a job that doesn't require a degree.

The Department of Education"s“crosswalk” links college degrees to potential careers, he writes. But it doesn't show whether graduates are likely to get those jobs.

Psychology is the most popular major at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), Andrews writes. "The program is marketed as a launchpad into 'a broad spectrum of professional fields' and, implicitly, as a starting point for careers in counseling and social services." However, "most of those jobs require additional education, licensure, or training beyond the bachelor’s degree." You need a master's degree to work as a psychologist.

A 2024 study of recent graduates found low unemployment (3.6 percent) for psychology majors but significant underemployment (45.4 percent), he notes. "Their median early-career wage is $45,000."

If colleges told students that most psychology majors don’t become psychologists — or that digital-media degrees rarely lead to jobs in tech — many would choose higher-value fields such as nursing or engineering that are more selective. Or, from the institution’s perspective, they might walk away entirely.

As part of the “Big Beautiful Bill, the Department of Education is now authorized "to cut off federal aid to programs where most graduates earn less than the median high-school graduate," writes Andrews. "It’s a low standard, but some programs will fail to meet it."

Yesterday's post notes that a Virginia college added "cannabis studies" in hopes of boosting enrollment. Do you really need a bachelor's degree to get a job selling weed? And, if you want to develop drug policy or run a drug business, is that really the most useful major?

"Not all college degrees are created equal," writes Grace Hall on the Martin Center blog. Potential students and their parents have a new tool, the Key Indicators Dashboard (KID) , which includes information on student debt, earnings and other measures. For example, the Price-to-Earnings Premium metric (PEP) tracks how long it takes graduates from various programs and institutions to recover their tuition costs.

PEP reports that nursing graduates at Azusa Pacific University, "recoup their tuition costs in less than a year" and international business majors in 1.9 years, while history majors require more than eight years. (I was surprised to see majors in fine and studio arts require only 4.2 years.)

The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity’s dashboard "includes many more schools," including community colleges, "but does not have the same level of detail," writes Hall. "For instance, it includes earnings only after one year and 10 years and doesn’t include tuition data, specifically."