Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
Holy toledo, what a dog's breakfast of statistics and correlation fallacy THAT is.

"Unclear?" Is that ever a polite euphemism. Unclear what any of it means, from that.

Though I suppose the high unemployment numbers at the outset (and from what cohort is this, anyway?? Times are far different than they were 30+ years back); that probably has a profound impact on lifetime earnings. Hey-- there's a thought. Maybe LIFETIME earnings is the right comparison. smirk

How about apples to apples? Maybe a table with some data in it would have been clearer.

This doesn't even begin to address the problems inherent in the semantics in this-- where at some institutions "Liberal Arts" means anything that is a BA degree and includes a gen-ed core, and at others, comprises a balanced and thoughtful, intentional course of instruction. "Humanities" is "Liberal Arts" at a good number of institutions, as well. At some public undergraduate colleges, Social Sciences doesn't even have its own division/college, and could be counted as either of the above.

Where is this data even FROM?? Who is reporting the values?
According to the captions of the graphs from the article, the sources are the US Census Bureau and 2012 American Community Survey. The "Note on Methodology" in the press release at http://www.aacu.org/press_room/press_releases/2014/liberalartsreport.cfm says this:
Quote
The study analyzed public use files from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2010 and 2011. These files include information related to the education and occupation of about 3 million US residents between the ages of 21 and 65. The report authors grouped together for purposes of comparison college graduates with four-year degrees in a humanities or social science field (e.g. philosophy, history, or sociology) and compared the employment status of these individuals with that of three other groups: those with degrees in a professional or pre-professional field (e.g. nursing or business), those with a degree in science or mathematics (e.g. chemistry or biology), and those with a degree in engineering.

*The term “liberal arts” is used in the report as a description for majors in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.