Much government information collecting is pointless or worse, providing excuses for politicians to further meddle with society. Sometimes, however, such collecting is valuable and a new site called NC Tower run by the North Carolina Department of Commerce has data on the earnings of graduates of UNC system institutions by major. In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jenna Ashley Robinson looks into some of the most revealing data on that site.

We see, for instance, that five years after graduation, students who majored in women’s studies earn on average just $14,949. Hmmmmmm…..after five years on the job, most McDonalds or Starbucks workers make that much. Probably quite a few women’s studies majors are doing just such work.

Information like this is going to get around. When it does, students and their parents will probably ask, “Why major in something that appears to have bleak future prospects?” The old college sales pitch that just having a degree to your name ensures you a huge boost in lifetime earnings, so you might as well “follow your passion” isn’t going to persuade many students. As a result, the majors that evidently do little to equip students with knowledge and skills that help them to succeed will either need to drastically change (unlikely if not impossible in the case of the various “grievance studies” departments) or lose students. And what will a university do with majors that attract hardly any students?