1/19/2012: This is by family income. Medical school gives you the best shot, followed by economics. Art history majors have better odds than finance students. Think about that for a minute.
The NYT post this comes from has more majors and discussion.
That’s because of the history majors which go on to study law (or become lobbyists…Gingrich is probably in there right?)
This is absurd. More art history majors make it than chemistry or finance? I don’t believe it! Maybe the art history majors marry top dogs and that’s how they make it. But with their majors? No way!
Art history majors come from wealthy families.
The majority of Art History majors actually do not go into art history as a profession. Wherever they go, though, they have a training in analytical thinking, coherent argumentation, and extracting meaning from the visual evidence of the world around them. These are skills that come in handy , and have considerably more versatility than the skills learned in, say, accounting.
This is only shocking if students all started as tabulae rasae beyond a generalized and equal K-12 education. Art history specialists, those who stay in, are more likely to start out on third base economically. I knew a lot of folks at the IFA at NYU, and I think exactly one came from a family I would call “middle class” in any way; the undergrad art history majors I advised in my affiliate program at another university also tended to have a very pragmatic idea of what they’d do with the degree (or else held it in tandem with another major). Undergrads who specialize in that way tend already to value that knowledge which usually points to a background that doesn’t match the cultural wasteland so many schools have become. Area studies, etc., and history serve as major springboards into law as well as international business (despite IR being discrete in this listing).
Despite all of that, it’s worth pointing out that the fractions are still very small. There are also other factors not clearly indicated, such as where the programs are (if Art History were taught only in the Ivy League, well…) and gender balance.