More than 20 million people are expected to attend college in 2014, with most of those students expected to start this fall.
Many of those students will not graduate and others will take more than four years to get a degree. But those paying the big bucks to go to school would like to know a career, or at least a job, is waiting on the other side.
WalletHub.com produced a study last spring that shows the best and worst entry-level jobs.
Here are the best entry-level jobs:
1: Web Applications Developer I
2: Information Security Analyst I
T-3: Designer I - Web
T-3: Attorney I
5: Software Engineer
Here are the five worst entry-level jobs:
1: Consumer Loan Servicing Clerk I
2: Boilermaker I
3: Claims Processing Clerk
4: Electronics Assembler I
5: Architectural Drafter I
Richie Bernardo is a financial writer who helped conduct the study for WalletHub.com. He said the best way to ensure a good career out of college is to build analytical abilities.
“Obviously, we’re all not talented in the same areas, but one of the biggest findings in the study is that highest-paying entry level jobs are those in the math and sciences and mainly those are in finance, engineering and IT,” he said.
The improving economy has created a disproportionate number of low-wage jobs compared to the high-wage jobs that were lost to the Great Recession.
Though projecting four years out can be difficult, employers probably are going to need people in fields such as engineering, Bernardo said. But students need to plan for their probable future salaries when choosing a major, he said.
“Students pursue different studies in college without considering their future earnings potential,” Bernardo said. “I think that’s a really big mistake.
“Total student loan debt in this country has surpassed total credit card debt, so we definitely need to place a heavier focus on educating students on financial responsibility early on.”
