Re: Top Five Degrees


"Jenny6833A" wrote...
AOL is touting one of it's badly padded articles, "Degrees Through The
Decades" by Jennifer Merritt. It's not worth reading. However, it
does list the "Top Five Degrees" by decade. By "Top Five" Merritt
means 'degrees most awarded.'

1970s: Education, Social Sciences and History, Business, English, and
(in 5th place) Biology.

1980s: Business, Education, Social Sciences and History, Health, and
(in 5th place) Engineering.

1990s: Business, Social Sciences and History, Education, Health, and
Psychology.

2000s (so far): Social Sciences and History, Business, Education,
Psychology, and Visual & Performing Arts.


Note that Biology and Engineering each made the list just once, but not
recently, and then only in fifth place. In 35 years, nothing else of a
scientific nature made the list at all.

Sad.

i havent read the aol article (nor do i intend to), but looking at the list
i see colleges confering degrees represented here, not the actual degrees.
secondly, are these associate degrees, BS's, BA's, (undergraduate degrees),
MA's, PhD's, or a combination? thirdly, being as an undergraduate degree is
roughly the equivalent of what a high-school degree was 30-40 years ago, the
field in which an undergraduate degree was conferred is largely irrelevent
to those who continue on into graduate work, iow fields like engineering,
biology, law, medicine, et alii, may be represented at the graduate level in
greater proportions, more accurately representitive of top degrees than is
being shown here. and lastly, given that more and more students are
recieving undergraduate degrees as a result of the deflation of H.S.
diplomas, the fields of biol and engn may be underrepresented in the numbers
by way of the higher influx of student seeking the easiest path out, hence
social science/history, arts, and other more easily aquired degrees than the
harder sciences, so while hard sciences could be conferring (and probably
are) more degrees than in the 70's and 80's, they've been outnumbered on the
books by those seeking a sheepskin.

just my 2 cent thoughts.


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