According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the top five conferred degrees are business, health professions, social sciences and history, psychology, and biology. The push toward STEM degrees for entry into STEM professions worked. If one were to do a quick search for top degree programs, they would find several top-five and ten lists with none of them indicating the arts as an option. This reticence appears to also stem from the stigma to push students away from the arts. What most do not realize, however, is that visual and performing arts actually slides in at number seven for top conferred degrees surpassed, no less by engineering at number six. While the initial six degrees had enrollment increases within the past 20 years, visual and performing arts have seen a slight decrease in degrees conferred.
It is also worth noting the expected average salaries of such majors. Among the key findings of the Economic Value of College Majors site from Georgetown University, the top 2 most popular majors are the two highest-earning career fields, STEM and Business. Within the bracket of the ten lowest-earning career fields, studio arts are listed. STEM and Business careers expect earnings of over $65,000 into their careers for the rest of their lives, while Art careers are noted as earning less than $41,000 per year. While this is a livable wage, it is significantly less than STEM careers. This discrepancy also contributes to the "starving artist" stigma for today's students. However, the truth is that $40,000 is a livable salary, though thousands of artists earn more than this, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The differential listed is what most students believe, thereby encouraging the stigma amongst them, their parents, and educators. See the upcoming Artist Salaries section for further information on actual earnings.
