Find out how much employment rates and wage rates vary for different college majors.  

Never too early to think about that ROI (return on investment) for your college education, especially if student debt is involved.The Federal Reserve helps out with this useful data visualization so you can find out employment rates, wages and prevalence of graduate degrees. 

Here's the data structure (note that you can sort the columns from low to high or high to low)

Questions: 

• How important do you think it is to choose a college major based on its earning potential?
• Which major has the lowest unemployment rate? Underemployment rate? 
• Which types of majors have the highest median wages for early career? Does the answer change when sorting by highest median mid-career? Why do you think these majors tend to have the highest salaries? 
• Choose a major that you are interested in/considering and jot down the data for that career. 

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Interactive resources are one of the favorites for NGPF Blog readers. You can find more of them here. 

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 Only a few days left in the NGPF "Guess the CPI Contest." Your class could win a $100 gift card. Details here. 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.