The 10 most regretted college majors span various departments, with journalism taking the top spot, marketing management and research coming in at number six and biology making the list at number nine, according to a 2022 poll by CNBC.
The cost of undergraduate education has increased by 180% from 1980 to 2020. In 2020, the average cost of tuition at a private university was $48,965 annually, compared to public universities, with an average cost of $21,035, according to Forbes.
The rising cost of college has also coincided with a shift in what majors people pursue. According to Forbes, there has been a steady increase in graduates in STEM-related fields, while there is an overall decrease in the number of liberal arts and humanities graduates.
Some majors that lost the most graduates were education, English, social sciences, foreign languages, history and liberal arts. The majors that grew the most were health professions, computer/information sciences, engineering, biology/biomedical sciences and business.
STEM-related jobs generally have higher projected income post-grad. According to the Hamilton Project, an economic policy institute, majors emphasizing math and quantitative reasoning are projected to have the highest lifetime earnings. In contrast, majors that train graduates to work with children or in a counseling role have the lowest.
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Muriel Bowen is an alum who graduated from the University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and GIS. Bowen chose political science as her major because of her interest in international affairs.
Bowen currently works as a transportation planner but intends to return to school to earn a master’s in urban planning. Despite her undergraduate major not directly relating to her current field, Bowen believes the knowledge she gained from her political science degree is invaluable.
“I have to do public speaking a lot as an urban planner, and I think that political science really prepared me for that, especially with writing and other soft skills,” Bowen said. “That’s something that the curriculum sort of helps you with.”
While Bowen does appreciate her political science experience, she does acknowledge that it is not for everyone.
“I think that if you do enjoy politics, it’s a very interdisciplinary major,” Bowen said. “There’s a ton of different concentrations at U of I. You can make of it what you want. But if you’re doing it because you feel like that’s what you have to major in to reach a certain career goal, I would reconsider and look to other majors.”
Charles Ledford, associate professor in Media, began teaching at the University in 2011. Much of Ledford’s career has been in photojournalism, which has taken him to almost 60 countries.
Ledford began his journalism career while attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after becoming a photographer for his school newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. He originally planned on attending medical school but struggled with his pre-med classes and found journalism more interesting.
“Seeing my photograph displayed like that, and people engaging with it … It was an epiphany,” Ledford said. “The clouds parted, the sun shone and I knew what I was, what I had been put on the planet for.”
Ledford thinks that many journalism majors go into the field without fully understanding the sacrifices and effort it demands.
“If you have someone who is trying to figure out what they want to do, and they choose journalism because they think it might be cool … It’s not necessarily going to work because it’s a hell of a hard thing to do,” Ledford said.
Braden Cox, sophomore in LAS, is pursuing a molecular and cellular biology degree. Cox is interested in attending medical school and chose his major because of the rigorous coursework and access to higher-level labs.
Cox said the options for MCB majors outside of pursuing a PhD or entering medical school are relatively limited. Cox thinks if you are not on a pre-health track, it can be hard to decide what to do with an MCB degree.
“Be open to anything because you don’t have to be an MCB major, and it definitely is not required information,” Cox said. “If you’re really interested in something else, as long as you get those prerequisites for medicine, you don’t have to be MCB.”
Despite the rising cost of college and a shift toward STEM-oriented majors, students are still choosing to pursue degrees in regretted majors.
In the case of journalism, Ledford thinks genuine passion and interest are needed to get the most out of the degree.
“I think journalism — like any career that’s truly rewarding over the long haul — has to be a calling,” Ledford said. “It has to inspire you.”
