• Compare data sets by describing their shapes, centers, spreads, and outliers

College Majors and Median Salaries

There are many reasons why a college student might choose a particular major to study in college. Some choose a major based primarily on interests, and others choose a major based on its job prospects.

Princeton Review ^[1] compiled the top 10 list of best college majors based on research covering job prospects, alumni salaries, and popularity. They are: Computer Science, Communications, Government/Political Science, Business, Economics, English Language and Literature, Psychology, Nursing, Chemical Engineering, and Biology.

What is your major? Is it one of the top 10? Having a major on this list will not guarantee you a job or a huge paycheck, but each of these majors does offer unique intellectual challenges and will help you develop skill sets that will be applicable in a variety of professional positions. Whatever major you choose, don’t pick based on the courses that come easiest to you, or what your friends are studying, because you’ll be cheating yourself out of some great opportunities and self-discovery!

Median salary is a figure that takes many salaries into account and reports the middle number in that set of salaries. When you see a median salary, you know that half of the salaries reported are less than that number, and half are higher. You can find median salary information for a variety of jobs and industries on many websites, such as Indeed Salaries and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.^[2]

In 2011, American Community Survey collected the salary levels of college majors across different major categories. The salary level is represented by the variable “Median_salary”. The following table displays a subset of the data.

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