Most Meaningful College Majors
Money isn’t everything. Some majors lead to more meaningful jobs than others. If you want to change the world with your education, check out the most meaningful college majors (and we’ll tell you the earning potential as well).
| Major | % High Meaning | Early Career Pay | Mid-Career Pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major:Accounting & Business | % High Meaning:48% | Early Career Pay:$52,400 | Mid-Career Pay:$80,700 |
| Major:Business Communication | % High Meaning:47% | Early Career Pay:$50,900 | Mid-Career Pay:$87,300 |
| Major:Business & Economics | % High Meaning:46% | Early Career Pay:$59,600 | Mid-Career Pay:$116,200 |
| Major:Business Analysis | % High Meaning:46% | Early Career Pay:$63,200 | Mid-Career Pay:$122,300 |
| Major:Agribusiness Management | % High Meaning:46% | Early Career Pay:$47,700 | Mid-Career Pay:$83,000 |
| Major:Business Leadership | % High Meaning:45% | Early Career Pay:$50,100 | Mid-Career Pay:$70,200 |
| Major:Business & Marketing | % High Meaning:45% | Early Career Pay:$51,000 | Mid-Career Pay:$98,900 |
| Major:Business & Information Technology (IT) | % High Meaning:44% | Early Career Pay:$60,100 | Mid-Career Pay:$116,900 |
| Major:Business Logistics & Transportation | % High Meaning:44% | Early Career Pay:$56,400 | Mid-Career Pay:$97,400 |
| Major:Business Economics | % High Meaning:43% | Early Career Pay:$58,400 | Mid-Career Pay:$110,200 |
| Major:Business Information Systems | % High Meaning:43% | Early Career Pay:$65,000 | Mid-Career Pay:$107,400 |
| Major:Business Technology Management | % High Meaning:42% | Early Career Pay:$57,400 | Mid-Career Pay:$94,400 |
| Major:Business Finance | % High Meaning:42% | Early Career Pay:$57,200 | Mid-Career Pay:$103,300 |
| Major:Business Technology | % High Meaning:42% | Early Career Pay:$52,800 | Mid-Career Pay:$89,900 |
| Major:Business Computer Information Systems (BCIS) | % High Meaning:40% | Early Career Pay:$64,000 | Mid-Career Pay:$105,300 |
| Major:International Business | % High Meaning:39% | Early Career Pay:$55,300 | Mid-Career Pay:$104,100 |
| Major:Small Business Management | % High Meaning:38% | Early Career Pay:$47,100 | Mid-Career Pay:$66,200 |
| Major:Quantitative Business Analysis | % High Meaning:37% | Early Career Pay:$74,000 | Mid-Career Pay:$125,400 |
| Major:Business Data Analysis | % High Meaning:36% | Early Career Pay:$64,700 | Mid-Career Pay:$90,000 |
| Major:Marketing & International Business | % High Meaning:34% | Early Career Pay:$52,500 | Mid-Career Pay:$108,400 |
| Major:Global Business | % High Meaning:31% | Early Career Pay:$55,800 | Mid-Career Pay:$83,000 |
| Major:International Business & Finance | % High Meaning:31% | Early Career Pay:$61,400 | Mid-Career Pay:$117,400 |
| Major:Computer Science (CS) & Business | % High Meaning:28% | Early Career Pay:$81,100 | Mid-Career Pay:$94,600 |
| Major:International Trade & Business | % High Meaning:27% | Early Career Pay:$54,800 | Mid-Career Pay:$86,800 |
| Major:Business Computing (BC) | % High Meaning:- | Early Career Pay:$73,000 | Mid-Career Pay:$143,600 |
When it comes to choosing a career and picking a college major that will help you achieve your goals, money isn’t everything. Job meaning counts for a lot too. That’s why Payscale asks everybody who takes our survey if they feel like their job makes the world a better place. This list ranks college majors by the percentage of graduates in each major who answer that question with a resounding “yes.”
Careers that involve directly helping people are generally perceived as the most meaningful, so majors that prepare students for a career working with people to improve lives rank highest on this list. If you look at our study of the Most and Least Meaningful Jobs, you also see that jobs in the health sector generally feel that their jobs are very meaningful.
Another job type that leads to a high sense of job meaning is Community and Social Service. So it makes sense that a high percentage of workers with a bachelor’s degree in pastoral ministry say that their work definitely makes the world a better place. Graduates who chose this path definitely sacrifice income potential for good karma, since the median mid-career salary for pastoral ministry majors is quite low.
That doesn’t mean that all meaningful majors lead to low salaries. Many of the health-related majors on the top of this list have high earning potential as well as job meaning. Workers who majored in subjects like Medical Laboratory Science, Respiratory Care, Clinical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Dental Hygiene and Diagnostic Medical Sonography have salaries above $60,000. And people with one of the highest-paying majors on our list, petroleum engineering, don’t seem to feel like they’ve sold their souls for a high income; the majority of them report high job meaning.