An Ivy League degree isn't necessarily a ticket to wealth. Here's what you need to know about the degrees (and colleges) that promise the best starting salaries.
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>> There are 2 things everybody knows for sure about planning a college career to maximize lifetime income. First, get into an Ivy League college and second, major in business when you get there. Both are very sensible, neither is supported by the facts. They're wrong. Let's start with a myth of the Ivy's. For some years now the evidence has been running against the notion that the Ivy's are a ticket to wealth. Perhaps the most famous piece of contrary evidence is a study done at Princeton comparing lifetime earning of Ivy League graduates with those that are accepted at Ivy's but went elsewhere. It turned out there was no difference in their lifetime earnings. In other words the Ivy's are great at selecting kids who already have what it takes but the Ivy's don't instill that power themselves. That was more than blown out in a recent study by payscale.com of college graduate salaries. Ivy League grads had high salaries but they hardly had a lock on them. In fact the top school for median starting salary is little Loma Linda University in California whose graduates tend to go into healthcare. Next up: MIT, Harvey Mud, Cal Tech and Stanford. Of the top 12 earning colleges by starting salary, only 1 was an Ivy, Princeton at number 7. And what about supposed superior earning power of business degrees? Get ready for another surprise. Engineering degrees of 1 kind or another held 8 of the top 10 positions in pay scale survey, led by chemical engineering for starting salary and aerospace for mid career salary. Business came in 35th. The worst paying college degrees: social work, elementary education and theology. Clearly the rewards for those careers are not measured in money. You can get more detail on these unexpected findings in Lynn O'Shaughnessy's blog The College Solution right here on cbsmoneywatch.com.
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