The Three Ts

Some months ago, on a crisp, autumn evening, I gave a talk to a group of high school seniors and their parents. The setting was a tree-covered boy’s school in the northeast, and the leaves were perfect shades of orange and yellow. What looked like an idyllic fall night to me, seemed like a tense moment for them. It was college application season, and everyone was stressed.

I’m not sure it helped to hear me say that, if you want to get off to a strong start in life, that often begins in college. But I tried to offer some perspective too. It’s not where you go to college as much as how you go to college. The best school in the rankings may not be the best school for you.

When the talk was over, I invited questions from the audience. One boy raised his hand and shouted this out: “What is the most successful major?”

The audience mostly chuckled and groaned, and I think a couple of people threw things at him, like pencils or hats.

“What do you mean by successful?” I asked.

“I mean what major earns the most when you graduate,” he said.

“I believe it’s petroleum engineering,” I said with a smile.

The boy jerked his head back, like that wasn’t what he expected to hear.

“That doesn’t sound good to you,” I pointed out.

He shook his head and scrunched up his face.

“Money matters,” I said. “But it’s not all that matters.”

Projectiles aside, the boy’s question about which major is the most successful major was a good one. At a time when students and their parents were fixated on what schools they might get into, this student was raising the topic of what to study instead. It was a smart query because, in terms of future earnings, what you major in matters more than what school you attend.^⁠ But you don’t have to be a petroleum engineer for college to pay off for you.

A 2024 analysis of 53,000 degree programs examined the return on investment or ROI, which is the increase in lifetime earnings attributable to graduating from college minus the costs of attending and the wages lost while in school.^⁠ The researchers found that about 75% of college degrees ultimately pay more than they cost, but the ROI varies by major. Not surprisingly, STEM majors, like petroleum engineering, have the highest ROI while liberal arts degrees such as fine art, psychology, English, and education have the lowest. “College pays off, except when it doesn’t,” the researchers concluded.

Research on ROI is useful, but it also tends to get people too focused on metrics like starting salaries and average salaries. Indeed, in recent years, countless students have followed the gold rush into computer science because “it’s a sure thing” only to discover that it’s not a sure thing, especially with the rise of AI.

Fortunately, the world needs political scientists and poets, and professions like teaching and nursing boast very low unemployment rates. And let’s be fair: Starting salaries are not great metrics for biology majors or history majors or psychology majors or other students who plan to go to graduate school for medicine or law or a PhD. Besides, averages are just averages. How much you as an individual earn in any profession has a lot to do with what you bring to it. If you want to be successful in life, don’t just be average. Do what you’re really good at and what you enjoy.

Whether I’m talking to college students choosing a major—or twentysomethings casting about for a career—I tell them to focus on “The Three Ts”. Here they are: