Guide
Majors, Careers and Earnings
How your choice of major shapes your career options, your earning potential, and how much debt you can reasonably take on to get there.
Your major influences which careers you can enter, what those careers typically pay, whether graduate school is required, and how much borrowing is reasonable. Understanding these connections before you commit helps you avoid expensive course corrections later.
Choosing a major is one of the few college decisions that touches nearly everything else: which courses you take, how long you stay enrolled, whether you need an additional degree, and whether your expected earnings can support what you borrowed. This section groups those connected questions together so you can think through them in order rather than in isolation.
The pages here move from the earliest decision — picking or researching a field — through the practical consequences of that choice, including earnings ranges, licensure rules, graduate school requirements, and what changing your mind actually costs. A separate page addresses how your major interacts with a sensible borrowing limit, because those two things cannot be planned independently.
Start with the plain-English guide and the terms page if the vocabulary is unfamiliar. Then use the checklist with your family before any enrollment deposit is paid. If you already have a major in mind, go directly to the earnings data page and the page on your field's licensure or graduate school requirements — those two pages together will tell you the most about what you are committing to.
What you need to understand first
Earnings range within a field
Most fields do not pay a single salary — they pay a wide range depending on role, employer, location, and experience. Understanding the floor of that range, not just the ceiling, is what matters when you are estimating whether you can repay a loan. The earnings data page explains where current figures are published and what drives the spread.
Licensure and credential requirements
Some fields require a state-issued license before you can work legally in them. The rules vary by state and by occupation, and they can include exams, supervised hours, and background checks on top of your degree. Enrolling without knowing these requirements can mean spending more time and money than you planned.
Graduate school as a requirement, not a choice
In certain fields, a bachelor's degree is not the terminal credential for employment — it is only the entry point to a required graduate program. This matters for borrowing because you are financing two degrees, not one. The page on majors that require graduate school explains which fields work this way and what that means for total cost.
Cost of changing your major
Switching majors is common, but it is not always free. Prerequisites, credit transfer rules, and program sequencing can add semesters to your enrollment. The page on changing majors explains how to estimate that cost before you switch and what questions to ask your advisor.
Matching expected earnings to borrowing
There is a relationship between what a field typically pays early in a career and how much debt a graduate can manage. That relationship is not a rule set by a single authority — it depends on loan type, repayment plan, and income. The page on matching a major to a borrowing limit explains the moving parts and where to find the current figures that feed into the calculation.
Skills that cross major boundaries
Employers in most fields ask for a set of skills — writing, analysis, communication, problem-solving — that no single major owns exclusively. Knowing this matters when you are choosing between a narrow technical program and a broader one, and when you are thinking about career changes after graduation.