Are There Easy Majors That Make a Lot of Money?

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• Majors that align with your inter­ests and strengths feel easier.
• Some majors tra­di­tion­al­ly con­sid­ered easy still offer good earn­ing poten­tial, espe­cial­ly in fields like mar­ket­ing or pub­lic relations.
• Suc­cess and earn­ings depend on fac­tors like edu­ca­tion lev­el, expe­ri­ence, and effort, regard­less of the major.

Does going back to school have to be hard? Not nec­es­sar­i­ly. For many peo­ple, the goal of high­er edu­ca­tion is to have bet­ter abil­i­ty to pro­vide for them­selves and their fam­i­lies, and there’s noth­ing wrong with that. The mod­ern eco­nom­ic land­scape has forced peo­ple to make tough choic­es, and look­ing for ful­fill­ment or chal­lenge from a high­er degree does­n’t often make the cut. That’s OK. Bach­e­lor’s Degree Cen­ter strives to give prospec­tive stu­dents access to infor­ma­tion about edu­ca­tion that is tan­gi­bly use­ful to their lives. That means sort­ing schools by their cost, by how long it takes to earn a degree, and poten­tial earn­ings in the fields you con­sid­er. We’ll help you look through degrees that lead to careers in fields expect­ed to see salary and open­ing increas­es, like in our rank­ing of the high­est pay­ing Bach­e­lor’s degrees of the future.

That list was cre­at­ed after dili­gent inspec­tion of a num­ber of sources that includ­ed salary track­ing out­lets, the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, the George­town Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter on Edu­ca­tion and the Work­force, and many oth­ers. We also took into con­sid­er­a­tion the dif­fer­ent jobs that these degrees qual­i­fied grad­u­ates for in assign­ing each entry its posi­tion in the ranking.

Your earn­ing poten­tial depends on a num­ber of fac­tors: edu­ca­tion, expe­ri­ence, con­nec­tions, and of course, effort. While some degrees are eas­i­er than oth­ers, that’s more of a sub­jec­tive expe­ri­ence than a uni­ver­sal one. Use your intu­ition. Where have you been most suc­cess­ful, and found your­self lost in the flow of your suc­cess and enjoy­ment of effort? The eas­i­est degrees are ones where you enjoy what you’re doing, so work­ing hard in them does­n’t feel stren­u­ous. Easy majors that make a lot of mon­ey sound great, right? Just make sure you’re com­pat­i­ble with the major you’re choos­ing. The bet­ter a fit you are with­in it, the more you’ll thrive.

Remem­ber, com­pen­sa­tion is on a scale that tips based on loca­tion, expe­ri­ence, apti­tude, and effort. If you’ve ever looked at a bell curve, you know there are always out­liers. The medi­an or aver­age income in a field that you’d excel in might not reflect your earn­ing poten­tial, the same way forc­ing your­self to get a degree in a major you’re not cut out for just because of the high pay asso­ci­at­ed with it won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean you’ll make as much as in the for­mer sit­u­a­tion. The search for a major is dif­fi­cult, but when you do your home­work and pre­pare for it, you have a much bet­ter shot at find­ing an easy major for you where you’ll be well compensated.

Majors that pay well may mean a high annu­al salary, or sim­ply more than a high school diplo­ma. Your career path may be pro­fes­sion­al, like:

• mar­ket­ing manager
• project man­age­ment
• human resources management
• pub­lic relations

or just entry-lev­el, like a den­tal hygien­ist. High-pay­ing jobs, as the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics (BLS) shows, can be in-demand jobs like:

• infor­ma­tion systems
• soft­ware engineer
• research ana­lyst
• social work­er
• sup­ply chain management
• web devel­op­ers
• law enforce­ment
• tech­ni­cal writer

Or, if you major in cre­ative writ­ing, it may be a mat­ter of get­ting lucky. Some high-pay­ing jobs depend on your being a go-get­ter, like real estate.

Do your mar­ket research, learn about job oppor­tu­ni­ties, and see the aver­age salary for career options with a col­lege edu­ca­tion, cer­tifi­cate pro­gram, or oth­er four-year degree. Prac­tiec your crit­i­cal think­ing, look for intern­ships, and con­sid­er on-the-job training.

If you’re begin­ning your search now, care­ful­ly con­sid­er the the high­est pay­ing Bach­e­lor’s degrees of the future to start shap­ing your choice. Remem­ber that no mat­ter how much pres­sure sur­rounds your choic­es of major, school, and career, you can always improve your sit­u­a­tion through edu­ca­tion and hard work. Good luck!

Relat­ed: 

25 Best Pay­ing Careers for Bach­e­lor’s Degree Grads

What Are the Top Pay­ing Careers in Communications?

What Are The High­est Pay­ing Busi­ness Degrees?

What Are The Eas­i­est Col­lege Degrees For High-Pay­ing Careers?