a sigh of relief for people like me?

daniel hamermesh has some research out now about university of texas graduates. apparently, the long and the short of his findings is as follows:

In other words, the amounts of human capital generated in college by different choices of major are not so different from one another as most people believe. Liberal arts majors don’t do that much worse than business majors; and economics majors do as well as business majors do.

now, of course, this research is flawed. state schools are different from private schools; different schools have different majors (e.g. mine had no "business" major); "liberal arts" means something different at a school like UT than it does at a school like oberlin; a wide range of studies are part of the "liberal arts" (on the one hand you can have regional studies programs, which are a boon to anyone trying to get a foot in the door in foreign market analysis; on the other hand you have english majors) and so on.

perhaps more puzzling is the paper's failure to mention the phenomenon of recruitment by consulting firms. i don't know that the inclusion of that variable would change his conclusions, but it seems to big to leave out—it's a way in which many "liberal arts" majors get high-pay jobs. and more importantly, consulting recruits have a pretty high turnover rate, i'm told—after a few years, you've often outlived your usefulness as a generalist.

anyway, i guess we "liberal arts" majors can all feel a little better about not going to pre-biz school.