With Butler’s just concluded 52-50 defeat of Michigan State in the NCAA Men’s basketball semifinals , let’s run though the semi finals for a practical college education. Cost matters and your field of study matters. The worst combination is an expensive college with a useless major. The best combination is an inexpensive college with a practical major. By useless we mean one that will not help you get a job and by practical we mean one that is likely to land you a good paying job.
Butler University will run a student (but more probably his or her creditors and parents) about $41,500 a year where a Michigan resident can attend Michigan State for about $19,000 annually.
At Butler there are some useful majors like Accounting, Actuarial Science, and Biomedical Engineering. But it has a long-list of majors that will result in a graduate flipping burgers and wondering what he really accomplished with his college education. From Anthropology, Classical Studies, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Sociology, to Urban Affairs , these degrees will almost universally land you in the poor house.
Michigan State also has its share of useless degrees from Anthropology, Art Education, Music Composition, English, to Jazz Studies. Or a student could buck up and take a tougher major like Material Science, Electrical Engineering or Chemical Engineering.
Again, cost matters and the field of study matters even more. Not all college is created equally.
