Dear Reader: This article appears as part of Student Life’s annual April Fool’s issue. Please don’t think anything in it is true. It’s all made up.
A new study released by Washington, D.C.-based group Higher Hopes reports that, for the first time in over two centuries, college students who major in English and anthropology earn the highest salaries in the years following graduation.
“In the past few years, there’s been a great rise in the need for budding anthropologists and scholars of poets like Chaucer and Beowulf,” said Associate Professor of Anthropology Robert Klein. “I believe I heard that this has something to do with the fight against terrorism, but what does it matter, really? These students deserve to be making six-figure salaries, and finally they are.”
Historically, the average annual salary of an individual who has graduated with an anthropology major has been between $23,500 and $38,300. Individuals with degrees in English have earned a yearly salary of between $26,400 and $37,600. The study reports that now those figures have risen to an average annual salary of $106,200 to $188,900 for both.
Until recently, students with undergraduate degrees in business made the most money of all college graduates.
“A diploma from any half-decent school of business used to automatically spell big bucks,” said Professor of Finance Mark Tanner. “I have no idea what went wrong.”
Students with degrees in business now earn an average of $33,700 to $53,200 annually.
Many Wash. U. students in the College of Arts & Sciences are thrilled with the news.
“It’s about time,” said sophomore English major Mariana Jacobs. “In my mind, there’s no question about which majors deserve to make the most money. I’ve never seen a business student read 500 pages in one night. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen a business student do much of anything – my hard work deserves a high salary down the road.”
But not all students on campus echoed Jacobs’ sentiments.
“I, personally, am pissed off,” said Dylan Ashby, a senior marketing and finance double major. “I chose to go to business school for one thing: to make money. Now I feel like I wasted the past four years taking dry, boring classes. And for what? Less than what a freaking English major makes!”
The Olin School of Business, Wash. U.’s business school, has already undertaken drastic action in light of these developments. The school recently fired 13 of its professors, most of them from the finance department.
In Arts & Sciences, both the economics and chemistry departments have considered making cuts to its faculty salaries. Ecstatic about the news, 30 percent of chemistry majors switched to English last night.
“Deep down in my heart, I’ve always wanted to be an English major,” said Dave Miller, who changed his major to English from biology as soon as he heard the news. “I’ve always had a passion for Virginia Woolf. But my parents pressured me into going pre-med; they kept telling me, ‘This way, you’ll make money and can read books on weekends at the beach house you’ll have enough money to buy.’ Now I can read and still know I’ll have financial security down the road.”