College is the new high school—this is a truism for those high school students who are seeking to enter or remain in the middle-class. Indeed, a college degree has become the golden ticket, but for those who need to take out student loans or receive other financial aid to make college attendance feasible, that ticket has been getting more and more expensive over the years. Is it still worth it to purchase that ticket? The answer depends.

Not only is total national student loan debt at the highest it has ever been in history, but also the sluggish labor market has had national unemployment at over 8 percent since before President Obama took office (and it’s over 14 percent for African Americans). It has becoming increasingly important that students not just attend college but choose a major that will lead to a good chance of finding gainful employment upon graduation.

Students who pay the price of their ticket, i.e. take out student loans to attend school and choose the right major, the ticket is worth the price; however, those students who don’t choose as wisely and end up spending 4 years studying a subject which has a glut of graduates will find themselves out in the cold—or in the unemployment/underemployment line—come graduation time. And what’s worse of all, those students who do not manage to find employment that will help them to pay off their debts and get a place of their own will now have thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt hanging over their heads.

To help students avoid ending up in the unemployment/underemployment line, Aaron Carey has stepped in with his book “Worthless” to dish out some useful advice to those looking to make a wise decision about what major to choose. Clarey not only graduated with a degree in finance in less than 4 years, but he has spent years working in the field of finance and giving lectures on issues related to economics.

Clarey’s advice can be reduced to this: if you want a job that pays more than enough for you to eat more than ramen noodles every night for years after you graduate and you want to do everything in your power to avoid having to make a triumphant return to your parents basement or your childhood bedroom after you graduate, then your best choice for a college major is to pick something in the STEM field–science, technology, engineering, and math.

Carey’s caustic and irreverent tone—the way he blithely dismisses the liberal arts as being ‘worthless’ because those fields of study are not STEM–is sure to turn some readers off, but it’s also one of the best features of the book. Even if you don’t agree with Carey’s thesis that your best bet is in the STEM field, you still feel like he is being unabashedly honest with you.

Aaron Clarey’s honesty and forthrightness, along with the way that he hammers his point home will keep you reading. While the overall message of the book is hard to deny, and there are plenty of studies and reports coming out every day that support his thesis of ‘STEM good, liberal arts bad,’ it is when Carey overreaches in an attempt to support that thesis that he strays into hit-or-miss territory. One gets the impression that he allows himself to get so carried away by the strength of his argument that he forgot to make sure all the details he provided to support that argument actually supported it.

For instance, Carey dismisses “communications” as being a worthless major. But advertising, which is a subfield of communications, is a field which has high wages compared to similar fields of employment.

One of the more egregious errors which Carey makes is to diss ‘beauty school’—as he refers to cosmetology school–by lumping it in with diploma mills and suggesting that in lieu of attending school to become a certified stylist a person should just start doing hair. I have one family member who became a hairstylist after graduating from one of the more well-known cosmetology schools, another family member who works as a barber/entrepreneur and owns his own barbershop as well as a barber school, and another family member who is also a barber; I can attest to the fact that beauty school is not a scam and that a person should attend school to receive formal training in their skill before trying to set up shop.

The chemicals that are used in modern day hair applications and treatments can cause serious harm to the stylist or the scalp of the person receiving the treatment if the products are not used appropriately. A good stylist can identify common scalp ailments or tell if a person should seek professional help from a dermatologist or other health care professional to treat a hair or scalp disease. Professional stylists do not think that anyone can—or should—just starting putting relaxers and dye’s onto a person’s scalp sans training. Professional salons do not allow unlicensed beauticians to work in their establishment (unless the unlicensed stylist is working under the discretion of professional stylist); discerning consumers who care about their tresses and are willing to pay top dollar for the upkeep of their manes do not allow unlicensed beauticians onto their heads. So unless your plan is to do hair in your cousin’s kitchen for the entirety of your career, you need to go to school and get your license.

Carey also takes aim at the field of environmental engineering by suggesting that getting a degree in that major is a waste of time.
But in a CNNMoney/Payscale.com listing of the top 100 best jobs in America environmental engineering is listed at number 5; ten year job growth in the number of jobs—from 2008 to 2018—is expected to be over 30 percent and median pay is $81k. The article quotes environmental engineer John Bradburn, 53, of Michigan who works for General Motors: “Even waste is a resource, and I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to reuse it.” Figuring out how to reuse waste materials, treat organic waste material, and avoid environmental degredation is only part of what environmental engineers do–and as I have already noted, they are well paid to do this.

Worthless boils down to this, from page 156:

It’s nice and kind to think about society and do charitable things, but the single best thing a person can do for society is simply support themselves and enjoy life. And though, no doubt, there’s been a ton of propaganda rammed down your throat to be selfless and share and think of others, there’s nothing wrong with putting yourself first and making sure you have an enjoyable, successful life.

I give the book 3 out of 5 stars. It’s a good book to give to a young person thinking about attending college. But don’t stop there: follow up that book reading with at least a few long and heartful conversations about the decision to attend college is so important, and ask why they are choosing a specific major.

“Worthless: The Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major” is available on Amazon.com and Aaron Clarey blogs at Captain Capitalism.