A Defense of Philosophy on Financial Grounds (Part 2)

As I mount my defense in favor of philosophy as a financially worthwhile discipline, I want to be clear about the benchmarks that I am using.  I have chosen measures that I think should be important to any discipline and any major when assessing financial value.  Moreover, they should be important both to college and university administrators as well as to students deciding on the best course of study as they consider future financial success.  In light of these considerations, I have chosen the following benchmarks:

(1) Job Potential: How likely is it that you will be able to find a job with a Philosophy degree?

(2) Job Growth:  How likely is it that the number of jobs in your field using your degree will grow at a rate favorable to continued employment?

(3) Job Security:  How resistant is your job to recessions, down-market events and slow economic times?  (I should think this would be essential as we consider our current economic crisis.)

(4) Earnings Potential: What is your starting salary likely to be?  What is your earnings potential throughout your career given your degree?

(5) Job Satisfaction: Are ya happy?  Do you like what you do? 

That about does it.  If any major succeeds well with most or all of these benchmarks, I would regard that major to be enormously successful, worth continued funding, and most importantly, worth a significant amount of institutional commitment, advertising, and resources. 

A few brief methodological notes.  As this is a blog, you will simply have to take my word that my information is thoroughly sourced.  I’ve spent the past six months slogging through databases and crunching numbers and getting help crunching numbers, then slogging through more databases, and I’m blogging…so I’ll show my work later!  I am happy to send the references and citations along to anyone who wishes, but here I will present only a summary of my evidence.  In addition to the article already being published, I am currently at work on a longer, more detailed version of these arguments and again, I will be happy to send draft copies when it is completed.  Finally, I am speaking primarily about Philosophy at the undergraduate level, not at the graduate level.  To my friends and colleagues with Ph.Ds, you already know how bad our job market is right now, and I do not see any real signs that this is changing as quickly as we might wish.

Job Potential:  There is the most solid evidence for this benchmark, and the most disbelief regarding it.  Philosophers find jobs.  Easily.  And the reason for this success turns out to be the very reason used against philosophy and against its viability as a major.  Philosophy as a major is not tied to any specific career path or vocational/technical orientation.  Business majors go into business.  Nursing majors become nurses.  Education majors…teachers.  Philosophy majors…well, not really any one thing.  Conventional wisdom asserts that this is a huge negative for students entering the job market.  But the numbers say the opposite.  It is true that rates of employment are lower after graduation for humanities majors generally as opposed to “career” majors.  But we would expect this; career majors usually have internships, etc., and it really is rather narrowly vocational, all things considered.  We should hope these “career-oriented” students are finding jobs or else something is seriously wrong.  After five years, however, this gap has decreased considerably.  After ten years, it’s gone entirely.  Why?  A few reasons.  First, humanities majors (and especially philosophy majors) pursue post-graduate work at a higher rate than “career” majors.  But when they get out of school, they get jobs.  When these post-grads enter the workforce, this balances that earlier, lower rate of employment.  Secondly, in a ten-year study by the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Education), it was shown that rates of employment of “academic” vs. “career” majors were virtually identical after 10 years.  Why?  Because there is very little connection at that point between major and employment.  See, the idea that there is a linear path from major to career is false.  Or at least, it is true only in the most narrowly vocational fields.  For most fields, no such linear path exists.  Outside of highly narrow or highly technical degree programs (Business, Health Sciences, Engineering/IT), students are relying in their jobs on “core skills” and not specific job skills.  Technical expertise ranks less than critical expertise.  Can you write well? Think well? Reason creatively and critically? Argue well? Think outside the box?  Then you will get hired at rates far higher than those with merely technical skill.  And of course, philosophy majors excel all other liberal arts disciplines in teaching these skills.  And employers are realizing, at least according to the Association of American Colleges and Universities, that these core skills are not only highly practical, but highly valuable and marketable.  So, are there jobs for Philosophy majors?  Yep.  The number of jobs available for philosophy majors exceeds the qualified national average of annual openings, and moreover, there is high flexibility for Philosophy majors in the kinds of jobs they can choose. 

Job Growth: Annual job growth rate for Philosophy majors? 18.9%  Annual job growth rate nationally?  10.9%  What?  Nearly double the national average?  Yep!  And those are 2010 numbers.  Got that?  Almost twice the national average in the middle of a recession.  That’s better than nearly all (it may be all, but I don’t want to say that yet…) liberal arts majors and a majority of “career” majors, including Business, Marketing, and Accounting.  That’s not too bad.  It’s not the best, but it’s certainly not the worst, and it’s still very, very good.  Especially for 2010. 

Job Security: Now this is an interesting question.  What makes a major secure?  I am relying here on the careful research of others, and not my own.  And while I have questions about portions of their methodology, I can’t find fault with it, and neither can those I’ve turned to for help.  So, I’m confident enough about it, and sourcing available on request.  But the book, by JIST Publishing, is 50 Best College Majors for a Secure Future.  It is “popular research,” but it stands or falls on its methodology and as I said, no problems so far.  For the purposes of their report, a “secure” major was defined as one whose supported jobs (a) show strong projected job growth, (b) demonstrate low economic sensitivity to recession, and (c) are not easily “off-shored,” that is, handed off to a foreign country and thus considered reasonably insecure.  Jobs supported by each major were identified through the National Center for Development and the Occupational Network [O*NET] Database, and where a major supported both secure and insecure jobs, a percentage was used to gauge the security of the major overall.  Earnings potential and job growth figures are taken from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Philosophy ranks 19^th overall.  This is better than all but two other academic majors and many “career” majors including, once again, Business and Marketing.  And we can, and probably will, argue about the numbers but they make sense to me for a number of reasons.  First, the skills learned in a Philosophy major are inherently portable.  You can take them to any job and you will stand out insofar as you possess them.  They are also skills that are in decline, unfortunately, in our higher education system.  Critical thinking, rational argument, writing and reading skills: these are important assessment measures for colleges and universities, but our graduates are not learning them as well or as deeply as they should.  Except in Philosophy.  And employers are taking notice.  Second, the skills learned with a Philosophy degree are valuable and marketable no matter what you do.  And they’re easily accessorized with a variety of majors and minors.  Third, flexible job skills are prized in a weak economy.  If you are trained for one narrow job and there aren’t any openings…you’re screwed.  If you have skills that are valuable and translate well into any job…you’re successful.  Is there greater insecurity knowing you do not have a definite career path?  No.  Not according to that 10-year study, and really, not any more than most other majors, even those with career paths.  Job insecurity is a feature for everyone, especially now, and given my earlier points I should think insecurity would be less for Philosophy majors than it would for other disciplines given the nature and intrinsic marketable value of the skills you learn.  Finally, Philosophy majors outperform nearly everyone else in qualifications for post-graduate work.  Not sure what to do for a career?  Get a Master’s, go to Law School, Med School.  After all, our majors take on all comers and win on those tests.  Job security?  Oh yeah.

Earnings Potential: This is a hard one for people to believe, that philosophy majors can make money.  But with the advent of Payscale, this argument has gotten much easier to make and many, many people are now aware of it.  While the starting salary will be lower for Philosophy majors than for most others, it still isn’t bad.  Around 35-40,000 to start.  But that’s not where the action is.  The real metric is 10-15 years in, the so-called “mid-career” point.  While a large number of majors are staying flat in earnings’ growth, philosophy majors are increasing their earnings.  At mid-career, our majors are outperforming all other liberal arts majors and many, many career oriented disciplines – Business, Nursing, etc.  Why? Because our skills are so valuable.  Take Nursing.  Excellent training, excellent job prospects, excellent starting salary, excellent job growth.  But 15 years in, the difference between a starting nurse and and an experienced nurse is relatively slight in terms of pay.  Experience outstrips compensation as wages hit a natural ceiling.  No matter how good a nurse you are, at some point your earnings are going to cap.  At that point, your experience increases, but not your pay-grade.  This doesn’t happen generally in the kinds of jobs that philosophers get.  As our knowledge increases and our skills pay off, we reap those benefits financially.  Again, our flexibility pays dividends.  In a tight market, sure, this effect is going to be less pronounced.  But in a bullish environment, we can go where our skills receive the most value.  We’re not limited to a single vocation with what amounts in the end to a wage cap.  Pretty nifty.  Moreover, I find repeatedly that these Payscale numbers are backed up by other studies (thank you, NCES!). 

Job Satisfaction: I included this metric because it is important to me, not necessarily to students.  I think there should be a reasonable expectation that you like what you do for a living.  This falls last on people’s list, usually, when they’re considering a career, but unfortunately, it comes back to haunt you later.  Career oriented majors tend to have the lowest rates of job satisfaction.  Regardless of stability and pay, they consistently rate their levels of satisfaction pretty low.  Humanities majors?  They’re the opposite.  They generally like what they do.  Or at least, more than their career counterparts.  To me, that’s important. 

So, why aren’t students flocking to their philosophy departments?  Why aren’t administrators flooding us with money?  That could be the subject of a bunch of new posts, but there is one thing I think it is important to say.  The numbers suggest a new argument as Philosophy departments and majors come under fire.  A college or university that (a) does not actively and materially support their Philosophy department, and (b) does not actively and materially work to recruit new students into the Philosophy department (regardless of degree intentions) is hurting itself financially and jeopardizing the future success of its students.  Too strong?  No, I don’t think so.  We have study after study showing that all students benefit – directly and financially – from the skills that we teach better than anyone else.  But more importantly, we have quite a few studies showing that new college students, first-generation students and students from disenfranchised populations all benefit in direct proportion to their exposure to a broad-based humanities education, i.e. the kind of thing philosophy provides in the highest degree.  What’s more, these students are the ones least likely to engage that sort of education and the ones most likely to focus on a career oriented education instead.  With quite a few colleges and universities, this means there has to be active recruitment of students towards the humanities and material support for those departments.  If the argument is too strong anywhere, it is too strong in its emphasis on philosophy.  I think the same argument can and should be made for all of our humanities departments, though I maintain a tribal pride and insistence in our ability to excel in the teaching of argument, critical thinking, rational discourse, and articulate communication.  Nothing wrong with that. 

If these arguments and numbers help, use them! I would rather help one philosophy (or humanities department) not lose funding than get an article credit or something silly like that.  Enjoy!