Liberal Arts Degrees
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Salaries For Degrees in Liberal Arts
Those who majored in Liberal Arts can be employed in a variety of jobs. It is impossible to say what you personally will do with a degree in Liberal Arts, our survey panel picked the following occupations as likely options:
- Funeral directors (Best salary!)
- Slot key persons
The median salary for people with a degree in Liberal Arts is $34,236.20. The lifetime value of this degree is approximately $897,244.00.
Salaries are highly dependent on how skilled one is at negotiation, seniority in the field, your employer, region, and more. The estimates we show on these pages are just that: estimates. Your individual experience will likely vary.
Where does this come from?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the US government, classifies all workers into some 800-odd occupational categories. We paid a team of freelancers to get their opinion on what type of degree a holder of each type of job would likely have majored in. For pairs which had a high degree of consensus, we created a link between the degree and the job.
From this, we calculated the average salary for Liberal Arts degrees and converted it into a lifetime value. We then compared it against other degrees at the same level of schooling (such as associate's, bachelor's, or master's), so that you can make informed educational and employment decisions.
What Can a Liberal Arts Student Expect to Learn?
For those curious about what being a student of the Liberal Arts entails, it might help to picture the Liberal Arts as an academic take on the “jack of all trades”. The reason for this of course, is that an undergrad student attending a liberal arts college will most likely be required to take a variety of courses, most of which fall under three different areas: the social sciences, the humanities, and the biological/physical sciences. The social sciences include a broad grouping of subjects, all of which in some way deal with studying human societies in an objective way.
A student of the liberal arts can expect to choose from a range of coursework including disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, linguistics, history, law, political science, and communications. The humanities deal with subjects that beg the question “what does it mean to be human?” Topics among the humanities are sometimes similar to those found in the social sciences, although they tend to come from a more speculative and analytical angle. Students of the humanities will choose from disciplines such as philosophy, literature, the performing arts, and religion. The study of law, linguistics, and anthropology, while primarily considered social sciences, are sometimes seen as part of the humanities as well.
Additional Studies
The final group of subjects students of the liberal arts may encounter are the physical and biological sciences. This area includes topics such as chemistry, mathematics, oceanography, geology and biology. As you can see, the study of liberal arts is meant to endow its pupils with a broad range of knowledge that will enable them to understand and solve problems by drawing from a variety of perspectives. These are important skills to have in today’s technological age where job opportunities can arise in new fields that require workers who can think outside the box.
Degree Options
There are many schools out there with cater to students seeking an online degree in the liberal arts. Some of the online schools out there offer two year degrees, known as Associate’s degrees, while many more offer four year degrees known as Bachelor’s degrees. There are two main types of Bachelor degrees, the Bachelor of Science and the Bachelor of the Arts degree.
There are a vast multitude of Bachelor degree programs offered that focus on specialty areas. The name of the specialty area becomes part of the name of the degree, such as a "Bachelor of Science in Sociology" or a "Bachelor of the Arts in Communication". Once a student receives a Bachelor’s degree, he or she then has the option to enroll in graduate school. Not every college will offer graduate degree programs, but there are quite a few that will. With higher degrees comes increased job opportunities and usually increased pay. In some fields of study, such as sociology, getting at least a masters degree is recommended in order to make it easier to find a well paying job.
A Master’s degree is usually the next step for students wanting to continue their education beyond their Bachelor’s degree. Master's degrees tend to be one to two year programs that allow further specialization in an area of focus. After the Master’s degree, further specialized education comes in the form of a PhD, which generally takes another few years of school to complete. After the PhD, the final step that can be taken is to work towards a Doctorate degree, which requires yet another few years of course work.
Online Schools Offering Accredited Liberal Arts Degree Programs
Going back to the beginning of the list, students seeking an online Associates degree can choose from some of the following programs. The University of Phoenix offers an Associate of Arts in Communications which is geared towards teaching students to communicate effectively to groups of people, both an on interpersonal level and on the mass media level through the use of printing and broadcasting techniques.Saint Leo University is an online school that offers a general Associates degree with emphasis on being able to set your own class times, as well as providing Career and loan/scholarship services. Liberty University is an evangelical school which offers an online general Associates degree that teaches students from a Christian perspective.
Out of all the degrees available online, the Bachelor degree is the most offered and has the greatest number of options to choose from. The two schools that probably offer more Bachelor degrees in the liberal arts than any other online school are Ashford University and Grand Canyon University.
Grand Canyon University offers programs such as Communications in digital film production, graphic design, and public relations as well as programs in history, sociology, and English Literature.
Ashford University offers geography, history, and art history among many others.
A few other online schools offering Bachelor degrees in subjects such as anthropology and Liberal Studies are the University of Phoenix, Oregon State University, and Kaplan University Online.
Top Colleges & Universities Offering Campus-based Liberal Arts Degrees
Each year, U.S. News puts together a ranking for top (offline) liberal arts schools in North America. A liberal arts college is generally classified as such if half of more of its students graduate with a liberal arts degree. Liberal arts schools are also known for having a smaller number of students per classroom compared to traditional universities. The following list is comprised of the top ten colleges for the year 2010 as ranked by U.S. News:
- Williams
- Amherst
- Swarthmore
- Middlebury
- Wellesley
- Bowdoin
- Pomona
- Carleton
- Davidson
- Haverford
Like their online counterparts, these schools offer a large variety of programs with different focus areas, and some may be better than others depending on an individual student’s taste and interests. For the most part you can expect all of them to offer programs that fall under the three general categories mentioned at the beginning of this article; those categories being the social sciences, the humanities, and the biological/physical sciences.
Famous Liberal Arts Students 
By now you may be wondering what type of people have benefitted from a liberal arts degree. From past presidents to rock stars, there are in fact many famous people who received a liberal arts degree before going on to reach celebrity status. Former Presidents of the United States of America John F. Kennedy (anthropology), Ronald Reagan (sociology) and Bill Clinton (pictured right) (foreign language) all completed liberal arts programs.
Rock stars Mick Jagger (anthropology) of the Rolling Stones and Jim Morrison (theater) of The Doors both studied and received degrees from liberal arts colleges. Other celebrities, such as Howard Stern, Spike Lee, and David Letterman received degrees in communications. Jon Stewart and Hugh Hefner both completed their liberal arts degrees in psychology. The list of famous people who studied the liberal arts goes on and on. Perhaps one day you too will be on that list thanks to the help of a degree in the liberal arts. Here are some online classical studies resources.
