Engineering majors earn top dollar, but students in other fields can also see a strong return on their college investment.
It's no secret: College is expensive.
Nationally, student loan debt stands at $914 billion, up $10 billion from just three months prior, according to the latest quarterly report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Despite the gloom and doom over the rising cost of college, it still pays to get a degree if you do it wisely. Full-time workers with a bachelor's degree earn, on average, 84 percent more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma, according to a May 2011 report by the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University.
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But college is an investment, and not all investments are created equal. What you study impacts the economic value your degree will hold after graduation, which is why some parents urge their students to study business instead of poetry.
In fact, 42 percent of parents say they prodded their student to pick a collegiate path based on earning potential, and 16 percent of parents say they will have their child change majors to earn more money, according to Fidelity Investments, which surveyed nearly 2,400 families for its August 2012 report.
Which majors are parents pushing their kids to pursue? Computer science, nursing, engineering, psychology, biology, and accounting, the Fidelity report states.
While engineering and computer science consistently rate among the top-paying college majors, students should also research employment demand and hot skillsets, says Andrea Porter, communications director at Georgetown's CEW.
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