When students choose a college major, they’re often told the decision will make or break their career. A new book by Florida State University sociologist Corey Moss-Pech, Ph.D., says the reality is far more complicated, and more encouraging for liberal arts students than the headlines suggest.
Major Trade-Offs: The Surprising Truths about College Majors and Entry-Level Jobs, published in May 2025 by the University of Chicago Press, draws on nearly 200 interviews with roughly 90 students across four majors, engineering, business, English and communications, at a large Midwestern university. Dr. Moss-Pech followed the students through their senior years and into the workforce, tracking their internship experiences, job searches and early career outcomes.
His findings upend a common assumption: that graduates from so-called “practical” majors like business and engineering are better prepared for the workforce than their peers in liberal arts fields. While practical majors did enter the labor market more quickly and at higher starting salaries, largely through structured internship pipelines, many landed in entry-level roles that were predominantly clerical in nature and didn’t require skills learned in college. Liberal arts graduates, by contrast, were more likely to report using their degree skills once they secured a job.
“Students and parents often shy away from liberal arts degrees because they fear they won’t translate into labor market success,” Dr. Moss-Pech writes, “In reality, liberal arts skills are highly valuable in today’s workforce. At a time of economic uncertainty and exorbitant college costs, a degree that prepares graduates for a wide range of careers may ultimately be more valuable than one tied to a narrow professional path, especially when there’s no guarantee graduates will use those specialized skills or remain in that field long term.”
The book also raises that many liberal arts disciplines are disproportionately chosen by women and first-generation students, compared to practical arts majors like Business and Engineering. When liberal arts degrees are systematically undervalued in hiring and wages, the consequences reach beyond individual major choices.
Major Trade-Offs calls on colleges and universities to level the playing field by expanding access to structured internships and career support for liberal arts students, and to rethink how academic institutions measure the value of a degree.
Dr. Moss-Pech is an assistant professor of sociology at the FSU College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. His research examines how individuals navigate educational and labor market institutions. He has published in Sociology of Education, Social Forces, The Review of Higher Education, Qualitative Sociology and The Washington Post, among other outlets.
Major Trade-Offs is available through the University of Chicago Press at https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo246051255.html