TYT: Rich Kids Tend To Pick Less Useful College Majors

[WhoIsNumberNone]

"In 1780, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, in which he laid out his plans for what his children and grandchildren would devote their lives to. Having himself taken the time to master “Politicks and War,” two revolutionary necessities, Adams hoped his children would go into disciplines that promoted nation-building, such as “mathematicks,” “navigation,” and “commerce.” His plan was that in turn, those practical subjects would give his children’s children room “to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.”

Two-hundred and thirty-five years later, this progression—“from warriors to dilettantes,” in the words of the literary scholar Geoffrey Galt Harpham—plays out much as Adams hoped it would: Once financial concerns have been covered by their parents, children have more latitude to study less pragmatic things in school. Kim Weeden, a sociologist at Cornell, looked at National Center for Education Statistics data for me after I asked her about this phenomenon, and her analysis revealed that, yes, the amount of money a college student’s parents make does correlate with what that person studies. Kids from lower-income families tend toward “useful” majors, such as computer science, math, and physics. Those whose parents make more money flock to history, English, and performing arts.” *

Karamo Brown and Ana Kasparian (The Point) discuss on The Young Turks. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

*Read more here http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/

[GreatGazoo]

1. The data is nebulous. The majors correlating with lower parental income seem more

personal and peer-to-peer while the other end of the list is perhaps more abstract and analytical but even that distinction is far from clear. The original title of the article is "Rich kids major in English."

Would have been better to present the data -- the (alleged) correlations between parent's income and the choice of specific college majors -- without forcing conclusions on it. The data is like an ink blot -- you see what you want to see in it, if anything at all.

Per the chart at The Atlantic link, lower income parents correlated with majoring in: law enforcement, psychology, education or computer science. While the highest incomes correlated with: economics, visual and performing arts, history and english.

Those don't seem like very distinct sets of majors to me as you could easily combine many of them in a dual major like Education and English Lit, or Economics and Computer Science. The only thing that really stands out is "Law Enforcement."

There are many ways to cut the data they have and hopefully someone else will find something more useful in it. Might be more useful to correlate the parents' career(s) with the choice of their child's major.

Another cut on this data would be: what majors are most frequently chosen by those receiving athletic and other scholarships.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Maybe, it's because above a certain social level, it's often not what you know,

but who you know.

[bluestateguy]

3. Decades ago rich college girls used to major in literature or art history

It was all part of the training to be a good socialite, tea party guest and book club member.