The classic advice on choosing a degree is to follow your heart: the more interested you are in your subject, the more successful you will be, both academically and in later life. But, in today’s job market, does that hold true?
Get your decision right and you’re on course for a satisfying, well-paid career with a manageable loan repayment. Get it wrong and you’re saddled with poor job prospects, crippling HECS debt and a degree that’s barely worth the paper it’s printed on.
If you’re the parent of a teenager – especially one considering an arts or humanities subject – take a look at the numbers. You might get a shock.
‘s worst-performing universities in terms of graduate starting salaries (generally speaking) are the ones that offer humanities degrees. This is true even if the institutions are considered prestigious.
Creative arts degrees have some of the lowest median graduate salaries and the poorest prospects for full-time work, with years of study leading to a job with typical full-time pay of just $59,500, based on data from the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching’s graduate outcomes survey.
This is well below the $71,000 mid-point salary for all students four to six months after graduating.
Of ‘s 41 universities looked at in the Department of Education-funded research, 22 had median salaries below the overall mid-point, three were right in the middle and 16 were above that level.
Of that list, five universities had mid-point graduate salaries below ‘s median salary of $67,600, which covers both full-time and part-time workers.
Maurice Newman, who was Macquarie University chancellor from 2002 to 2008, says arts graduates are often unsuited to private-sector employment because they have been taught to despise society’s traditions.
‘Perhaps that’s because these days, arts degrees have become so polemical, graduates are less suited to profit-making ventures,’ he tells me.
The average graduate salary is $71,000… will your degree leave you behind?
Degrees that pay well…
Dentistry: $94,400
Medicine: $85,000
Social work: $77,300
Engineering: $75,000
Teaching: $75,000
Middle of the pack…
Computing and IT: $74,400
Law and paralegal studies: $73,000
Agriculture and environment: $71,100
Psychology: $71,000
Rehabilitation: $71,000
Health services and support: $70,800
Nursing: $69,400
Humanities and culture: $69,400
Business management: $69,200
Science and mathematics: $69,000
Degrees to avoid…
Veterinary science: $67,400
Architecture: $66,000
Communications: $65,000
Tourism: $65,000
Creative arts degrees: $59,500
Pharmacy: $55,500
But Andrew Norton, a professor of higher education policy at the n National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, points out that arts graduates historically had lower salaries than those doing a vocational degree such as nursing or teaching even before the courses became more ‘woke’.
‘They don’t have a lock on any well-paid occupation, unlike say nursing or teaching or these other degrees that lead to particular jobs,’ he says.
‘Employers generally prefer a particular degree, and as a result [arts and humanities graduates] always lose out compared to graduates who do have a degree that is directly linked to an occupation.
‘The skills they have are not as immediately valuable to employers as the people who have done more vocationally-orientated courses.’
‘s worst performing universities
The worst-performing universities when it comes to graduate salaries include Bond University, a private higher education centre on the Gold Coast that offers a Bachelor of Creative Arts, and a mid-point graduate salary of just $60,300.
Torrens University, in Adelaide, is the next lowest with a median graduate salary of $62,600, and online courses including a Bachelor of Branded Fashion Design.
The prestigious University of Melbourne has the third lowest median graduate salary of $65,300 and offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It also has a Bachelor of Creative Arts, now being phased out, offering the study of ‘radical fiction’.
‘This subject will examine the concept of radical fiction in creative writing in order to recognise the ways radical fiction can critique and subvert dominant cultural regimes,’ the University of Melbourne handbook states.
‘Through reading and discussion in these areas, and through drafting and exercises, students will be expected to produce their own radical work.’
RMIT University, also in Melbourne, has the fourth lowest graduate salary of $66,800, and offers a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Creative Writing.
BOND UNIVERSITY: $60,300
TORRENS UNIVERSITY: $62,600
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: $65,300
RMIT UNIVERSITY: $66,800
UNIVERSITY OF WA: $67,300
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY: $69,300
WESTERN SYDNEY UNI: $69,400
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY: $69,400
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY: $69,400
UNIVERSITY OF SA: $69,400
QUT : $70,400
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: $70k
UTS : $70k
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE: $70k
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY: $70k
WOLLONGONG UNIVERSITY: $70k
UniSC : $70k
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: $70k
GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY: $70k
FLINDERS UNIVERSITY: $70k
ACU : $70k
QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY: $70,900
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE: $71k
UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA: $71k
AVONDALE UNIVERSITY: $71k
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND: $80,000
CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY: $78,300
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA: $78,000
CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY: $75,700
UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND: $75,300
CURTIN UNIVERSITY: $75,000
UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES: $75,000
CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY: $75,000
JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY: $73,100
MONASH UNIVERSITY: $73,000
SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY: $72,500
EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY: $72,000
N NATIONAL UNIVERSITY: $72,000
SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY: $72,000
FEDERATION UNIVERSITY OF : $71,400
MURDOCH UNIVERSITY: $71,100
The University of Western has the fifth lowest graduate salary of $67,300 and it offers a Bachelor of Arts with a Fine Arts major ‘to establish your career in the field of contemporary art and culture’.
Communications, an arts degree often done by aspiring journalists, is also on the lower side at $65,000 – the same level as tourism and hospitality.
This is worse than nursing and science/mathematics graduates, who have starting salaries of $69,400 and $69,000, respectively.
Media qualifications are particularly woke, often requiring students to do cultural studies subjects on queer theory, gender studies and postmodernism.
Macquarie University, which has lower graduate salaries of $70,000, specialises in ‘critical studies of gender, sexuality and power’.
Arts degrees have below-average graduate salaries, with those studying humanities, culture and social sciences typically earning just $69,400 after finishing university.
But they do better than business and management graduates on $69,200.
Architecture and built environment was also on the lower side at $66,000, as was veterinary science on $67,400.
Surprisingly, pharmacy has the lowest median graduate salary of $55,500.
The Pharmaceutical Society of notes the average wage for early career pharmacists with less than 10 years’ experience is just $66,955, or $32.77 an hour, ‘making them one of ‘s lowest remunerated, tertiary educated health professions’.
At the other end of the spectrum, dentistry graduates are the highest paid at $94,400, even putting it ahead of medicine on $85,000.
Social work has a surprisingly high median graduate salary of $77,300 but it is an example of how government-funded roles are often better remunerated to encourage graduates to work in regional and disadvantaged areas.
Engineering is also on the higher side at $75,000, on par with teaching but ahead of computing and IT on $74,400, law and paralegal studies on $73,000 and psychology and rehabilitation, both on $71,000.
Agriculture was also right near the middle at $71,100, as was health services and support on $70,800.
Highest graduate salaries
The University of Southern Queensland has the highest graduate salary of $80,000 and is one of the few places offering a Bachelor of Aviation that teaches a student how to fly a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320, via a simulator, with a view to becoming a commercial airline pilot.
The University of Central Queensland in Rockhampton is second on the list with a median graduate salary of $78,300 and it offers a Bachelor of Oral Health.
The University of Tasmania is third highest with a median graduate salary of $78,000, and teaches a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery. That degree gives students a mix of training in Hobart and regional centres in Launceston and Burnie.
Charles Sturt University is fourth on the list with a median graduate salary of $75,700, offering a Bachelor of Dental Science.
Course satisfaction
In another twist, the degrees that produce the best-paid graduates for an undergraduate degree have some of the lowest course satisfaction scores.
The overall score for all bachelor degrees was 76 per cent.
But for dentistry, the degree with the highest graduate salary, just 60.7 per cent are satisfied with their course.
Pharmacy degrees produce the lowest-paid graduates but they have above-average satisfaction levels of 81.3 per cent.
Creative arts graduates report a 72.7 per cent course satisfaction rating, ahead of 73.4 per cent for communications graduates.
Full-time work prospects
When it comes to full-time work, just 53.5 per cent of creative arts graduates work at least 35 hours a week. This is well below the 79 per cent level for all degrees.
Communications degrees have just 64.9 per cent working full-time, likely due to the troubled state of the media industry.
But with suffering from a doctor shortage, 95.6 per cent of medicine graduates work full-time.
Pharmacists may be the lowest paid graduates but 98.4 per cent of them are working full-time – the highest of any degree.
Dentistry, the best paid after graduating, has 83.2 per cent working full-time.
The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching study of 363,248 graduates covered 130 educational institutions, including 42 universities, with results published for 41 of them.