This College Choice Could Make You $3Million Richer
The differences in starting salaries for STEM majors versus those who study the humanities have been widely publicized. Now, a new study looks at how those differences add up over a lifetime of earnings – and the results are staggering.
The lowest paid graduates, early childhood education majors, earn just $39,000 annually mid-career, while the highest paid petroleum engineering majors, make an average of $136,000 per year. Over a career, that difference amounts to more than $3 million, according to the report The Economic Value of College Majors by economists at Georgetown University.
Among the major fields of study, architecture and engineering students earn highest average salary--$83,000 per year, and education majors earn the lowest--$45,000 per year.
Related: 10 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates
The study finds that generally it’s still worth it to go to college. The average bachelor’s degree holder makes $1 million more over a lifetime than a person with just a high school diploma.
A separate report released last fall by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the value of a bachelor’s degree has reached an all-time high of around $300,000. Researchers found that it takes about 10 years to recoup the cost of a degree, a historically low level, down from close to 25 years in the late 1970s and 1980s.
So those education majors should still go to college, but they might be smart to look for more moderately priced options and to be more wary about taking on debt than their engineering peers.
GOP Tax Cuts Getting Less Popular, Poll Finds
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of President Trump’s signing the Republican tax overhaul into law, and public opinion of the law is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP. A Monmouth University survey conducted earlier this month found that 34 percent of the public approves of the tax reform passed by Republicans late last year, while 41 percent disapprove. Approval has fallen by 6 points since late April and disapproval has slipped 3 points. The percentage of people who aren’t sure how they feel about the plan has risen from 16 percent in April to 24 percent this month.
Other findings from the poll of 806 U.S. adults:
- 19 percent approve of the job Congress is doing; 67 percent disapprove
- 40 percent say the country is heading in the right direction, up from 33 percent in April
- Democrats hold a 7-point edge in a generic House ballot
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).
