It's no surprise that college degrees in STEM are the most valuable.
Bankrate found in their 2024 analysis that a Bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering and math for someone returns higher salaries and lower unemployment rates than any other field. In fact, the top 15 most valuable majors from their study were all in STEM.
Nine of the 15 college majors were in engineering with electrical engineering proving to be the most valuable out of the 152 that Bankrate considered. Electrical engineering has a median annual salary of $115,000 and an unemployment rate of 1.9%.
Bankrate looked at U.S. Census Bureau data from 2022 to rank the value of each Bachelor's degree based on median salaries, unemployment rates and the percentage of workers that earned an advanced degree.
Bankrate Analyst Alex Gailey said the results of their study came as no surprise because there's such a high demand for people in STEM.
"We generally have seen growth in STEM jobs over the last 10 years and we're projected to continue to see more growth in those occupations," said Gailey.
Gailey added that the number of STEM graduates at colleges and universities across the country have grown significantly with more job gains coming for positions in those fields too. There's a good chance that a career is ready and available for a student if they know what they want to do in STEM.
"There's a very clear connection between a STEM major and a career path," Gailey said. "A lot of students who go into these STEM majors have a clear sense of what jobs will be waiting for them on the other side."
Bankrate found the least valuable college degree in their study to Studio Arts. It has a median annual salary of $40,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.6%.
"There still can be value in getting an Arts and Humanities degree and I think it comes down to students being very clear with what they want to do with that degree when they graduate," Gailey added.
According to a survey from Pew Research, 49% of U.S. adults believe it's not as important to have a four-year college degree today in order to get a high-paying job than it was 20 years ago.