Aggregator
These Are The Highest-Paying College Majors
College is one of the largest investments many people make, and a student’s field of study can shape its long-term financial return.
Which Majors Earn the Most by Mid-Career?The chart below, via Visual Capitalist's Srijaa Chatterjee, ranks college majors by median mid-career wage.
Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York compares median wages across dozens of college majors for workers ages 35 to 45.
Engineering and technical disciplines dominate the upper end of the ranking. Alongside the three leading majors, electrical engineering pays a median of $123,000, while computer science, construction services, and mechanical engineering each reach $120,000.
Economics, finance, and business analytics are among the highest-ranking fields outside engineering and computer science, with median wages of $115,000, $112,000, and $109,000, respectively. At the other end of the ranking, several education-focused majors have median earnings between $52,000 and $62,000.
These differences can compound substantially over time. Even a gap of tens of thousands of dollars per year can translate into significantly different lifetime earnings, savings, and investment opportunities.
How Much Does Your Major Matter?The spread between the highest- and lowest-paying majors exceeds $80,000 annually, suggesting that field of study can have a substantial influence on long-term earnings. While this ranking focuses on workers in their mid-career, we also examined which college majors earn the highest salaries right after graduation, highlighting how pay differences begin early and evolve over time.
Research from the Federal Reserve has found that both a student’s major and institution can affect labor market outcomes, partly by shaping access to higher-paying employers and industries. Majors tied to specialized technical skills may also command higher wages because employers have a smaller pool of qualified candidates.
Salary outcomes are not predetermined, however. Industry, location, work experience, internships, professional networks, and certifications can all influence a graduate’s earnings trajectory.
What About Humanities and Graduate School?Some studies have argued that humanities graduates can narrow earnings gaps later in life as communication, management, and analytical skills become more valuable. In the current data, however, engineering, computer science, economics, and finance remain the clear leaders in median mid-career pay.
Graduate education can also change the equation. For students pursuing advanced degrees, an undergraduate major may be only one factor shaping future earnings. Professional credentials in law, medicine, business, and specialized technical fields can significantly alter career outcomes.
Salary is also only one consideration when choosing a major. Personal interests, job satisfaction, work-life balance, and career flexibility all matter. Still, for students evaluating the financial return on a degree, field of study remains an important part of the equation.
Want to explore more education and labor market data? Check out Most Underemployed College Degrees on the Voronoi app.
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/16/2026 - 23:00Trevor Zegras becomes highest-paid Flyers player with $36.5 million extension
Bryce Harper gives stunning guess for LeBron James’ next team
Family of grandmother who was killed falling into open NYC manhole files wrongful death suit against ConEd
Adam Silver believes Caitlin Clark has become a ‘political football’ in WNBA
Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez cozy up during romantic Central Park stroll
Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez cozy up during romantic Central Park stroll
Juan Soto exits with ‘a little’ calf soreness in injury concern Mets don’t expect to linger
CBS cuts away from Trump’s election fraud speech — as ABC and NBC refused to air it on TV
Wander Franco making push to return to field after sexual abuse trial — but he might not be eligible
World Cup final between Spain and Argentina is a battle of mentor against protege
Dodgers pop-culture domination continues with Godzilla bobbleheads planned for regular-season finale
America's Gerontocracy Goes Deeper Than Aging Politicians
Authored by Connor O'Keeffe via The Mises Institute,
Senator Lindsey Graham died seemingly out of the blue over the weekend after a tear in his aorta. He was 71 years old.
The news was shocking, in part because Graham was a very active senator - he was just returning from a trip to Ukraine - and because he was seemingly at the height of his power, having built one of the most influential relationships with President Donald Trump of any politician.
But another reason the news was such a surprise was because, compared to many of his colleagues in Washington, Senator Graham was on the younger side.
That impression was fueled by the ongoing ordeal of Senator Mitch McConnell. The 84-year-old serving senator was reportedly found unconscious weeks ago after a fall, leading to his ongoing hospitalization.
Early reports that EMS had responded to a cardiac arrest at McConnell's residence when he was first hospitalized, his wife's strange trip to China in the middle of all this, and the total radio silence for weeks from a supposedly active senator all led to speculation online that McConnell was faring far worse than his staff and Republican party insiders were admitting.
Others went as far as to speculate that McConnell had already passed away, but that his team and establishment allies were attempting to delay the public acknowledgment of his death until after it would no longer force a special election. That theory gained enough traction online to prompt McConnell's team to post a literal proof-of-life photo of the senator holding that day's newspaper.
This all follows, of course, the age-record-breaking presidency of Joe Biden, and the campaign that was derailed because of it. Now, Trump is on track to break Biden's record and, at the end of his term, become the oldest serving US president in history.
In addition to McConnell, many of the most prominent members of Congress are quite elderly, have been in office for decades, and show no interest in ever retiring. Senator Dianne Feinstein - who died of old age in 2023 at the age of 90, hours after casting a vote on the Senate floor - provides a good example of how many of these career politicians apparently plan to leave office.
With all this happening, it's easy to understand why many have increasingly come to consider the United States to be a gerontocracy, or a society ruled by old people.
As with just about anything online, there are sophisticated and unsophisticated versions of this observation.
The unsophisticated version simply points to the multitude of examples of politicians remaining in office long after most people would have retired from just about any line of work and concludes that the prevalence of exceptionally elderly politicians is hampering the government's ability to function properly.
This narrative is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the actual role of politicians within the American political system.
While American politicians certainly have power, in the last century or so - and especially in the decades since WWII - the bulk of federal power has shifted from politicians in Congress and state legislatures to the bureaucracies that make up the ballooning federal agencies in the executive branch.
The vast majority of those in Congress are simply expected to show up and vote with their party's leadership on the latest massive omnibus spending bills, made up almost entirely of carve-outs to special interests. Or to pass legislation crafted with diligent collaboration from "experts" at the executive agencies that will receive the new funding.
The most effective politicians will lobby to add additional spending that in some way benefits some special interest in their own district. But mostly, their modern role is to fundraise for their party, engage in legitimizing rituals, and stoke vicious debates with the other party over what are, in the scheme of things, incredibly minor policy issues to keep us all believing that we truly live in a functioning representational democracy. And, especially because the politicians themselves are merely the frontmen for a larger staff handling the specifics on all those fronts, it's a role that quite elderly people are certainly capable of doing well into the physical and mental decline that often accompanies one's later years.
The more sophisticated version of the "America is a gerontocracy" narrative focuses less on the politicians themselves and more on what the government is doing. Because, if one takes even a passing glance at how the federal government taxes and spends, it quickly becomes clear that government programs are actively transferring vast amounts of wealth from younger generations to older generations who are, on average, much wealthier.
There are a lot of reasons for this. Many can be traced back to seemingly innocuous attempts to ensure that elderly people without close family members, adequate housing, or connections to any kind of community were cared for. The programs that would eventually become Social Security and Medicare were sold as small programs to help those on the margin. The same goes for the founding of interest groups and lobbies such as AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons).
But as with just about any government program started in the name of helping a small number of genuinely downtrodden Americans, these entitlement programs exploded in size as they were quickly expanded to also benefit whichever groups were organized and motivated enough to lobby effectively.
And even setting lobbying aside, the elderly tend to be disproportionately dependable, and therefore powerful, as a voting bloc. Retirees especially often have more time to focus on issues, call lawmakers, watch cable news, write letters to the editor, engage with local parties and candidates, and vote than their younger working counterparts.
So promising to protect - or better yet, expand - entitlement programs that seniors benefit from is a straightforward way for any politician to secure the support of a lot of enthusiastic voters, while even muttering a half-formed thought about potentially cutting them is almost certain to torpedo any campaign.
Meaning the conditions for the substantial growth of programs transferring money to seniors were already there. But, on top of that, the baby boomer generation - now making up most retirees - has grown old at the same time that medical technology advanced substantially. So, on top of being an unusually large generation, they are also living longer. That's, of course, a positive development. But in our increasingly socialized elder-care system that also puts a growing financial burden on younger generations.
Contrary to what the government's shockingly-effective propaganda says, the money seniors receive through Social Security is not their own money that had been taken from their previous paychecks and set aside to be returned to them in retirement. The money they "paid in" to the program had already been used for Social Security checks for earlier generations and other government programs. The money today's seniors are getting through the program is being taxed directly from today's younger workers - workers who are forced to pay for a much larger pool of Social Security recipients than the previous generations were.
Add to that the other programs like Medicare that don't even pretend to come from a "lockbox." Or the fact that some of these programs cover things like golf fees and ski trips. Or the various government programs explicitly helping seniors stay in full family-sized homes long after downsizing would make more financial sense while simultaneously pushing the price of those homes higher and higher. And the disproportionate burden younger generations experience from the Fed's permanent price inflation - especially the price inflation that came as a result of the trillions of dollars printed to prop things up as the federal government shut down the economy, the schools, and every aspect of life for younger generations to keep the elderly safe from a disease everyone was always going to get anyway. And, above all, much of this wealth is being transferred into the pockets of older Americans who are much wealthier than the younger people that are forced to pay for it.
Lay all that out, and it's easy to see why we are experiencing so much generational strife right now. How could there not be?
The justified frustration younger generations are experiencing with the current setup often gets directed towards the handful of exceptionally old politicians and justices at the top of all three branches of the government. But the true root of this problem lies in the intergenerational wealth-transferring government programs that have been built up over many decades. And that will, if not properly understood and subsequently abolished, continue to fuel this generational conflict long after the current group of geriatric politicians is gone.
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/16/2026 - 22:35Three pressing questions facing Yankees ahead of second half
DHS finds 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote, Trump expected to reveal in primetime speech
"The Trend Is Now An Enemy": Kospi Slide Will Deepen As Momentum Flips Script
By David Savage, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
The trend is now an enemy for Asian equities, especially those in South Korea, rather than the friend it was when they soared for much of the first half of 2026.
Momentum has been the undisputed king for global factor investing in 2026, particularly for Asian markets. Those trades are fracturing, as reversals in South Korea and other tech-heavy sectors set off a deepening rotation in the region. Investors look to be taking some of the hefty profits that remain on the winners from 1H 2026 and pivoting toward other assets. That’s a theme also gaining traction for US chipmakers, with the SOX Index down more than ~18% from the highs of June.
June is looking like it was the peak for Asian equity momentum. That was when some key global index rebalancing provided a price insensitive buyer for recent AI-aligned winners. Aided by the SpaceX IPO, that kicked off a retail frenzy that reverberated across Asian markets. Now that rebalancing activity has passed, and recent additions to benchmarks such as SpaceX and Marvell Technology are seeing some mean reversion.
Foreign equity outflows were already making Asia more dependent on retail investors, who turned to leveraged ETFs and margin borrowing to amplify their bets. Overseas funds offloaded over $100 billion of South Korean stocks and more than $30 billion of Taiwanese shares YTD. That came even as those markets expanded to each surpass $5 trillion in June, overtaking the UK and Canada to join the top 8 exchanges by market cap.
Retail investors filled the void, especially in Korea. Unburdened by portfolio constraints that oblige active and passive funds to prune winning positions, retail accounts can hold onto winners for longer or even double down on them, reinforcing momentum as a dominant trend.
Now, one of the main products of the momentum trade — leveraged ETFs — is becoming a major negative for Asia, which had led the way as these assets expanded globally this year. So much so that South Korean authorities just said they will halt any new listings of single-stock ETFs and increase regulations on trading such products in an attempt to dampen market volatility.
Memory giant SK Hynix attracted one of the highest concentrations of single-stock leveraged ETF assets. In late May, Korea permitted the setting up of several domestically-listed single-stock leveraged ETFs, spurring a surge of flows into vehicles offering 2x exposure to the performance of SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. At the peak, just three such SK Hynix ETFs held over $23 billion in assets, more than 2.5x the average daily turnover in the company’s locally listed shares.
These funds utilize swaps and options to maintain the 2x daily exposure they offer. As the underlying price moves, the fund’s leverage ratio drifts, triggering rebalancing to restore the target ratio. Thus, if the price of SK Hynix falls, then the fund (or its swap counterparty) needs to sell down exposure to bring the leverage ratio back to 2x.
The unwind of these vehicles has punished equity momentum in July and spurred a rotation in Asia toward former laggards.
The momentum factor had outperformed since the end of March as cross-asset volatility retreated, global growth remained resilient and oil prices dropped.
But now, renewed US-Iran fighting is pushing crude higher, breathing new life into the US dollar and reviving global rate hike fears. Asia’s equities are proving more vulnerable than most to tighter financial conditions and the resurfacing of geopolitical risks.
The reversal in trading dynamics, aided by the impact of leveraged retail investors, is sending volatility surging with the Kospi’s 30-day realized price swings rising to a new record. That signals the past month’s declines in the Kospi have the potential to extend, souring sentiment across Asia and even beyond to chipmakers globally.
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/16/2026 - 22:11NBC News fires security guard over ‘Today’ show fiasco where intruder confronted Craig Melvin with racial slur
NBC News fires security guard over ‘Today’ show fiasco where intruder confronted Craig Melvin with racial slur
Rogue Rover: Tony Robbins' AI Bought Robot Dog To 'Merge With' Without Permission
Billionaire life coach Tony Robbins revealed that his personal AI agent named "Bartok" independently purchased and shipped him a robot dog without asking permission.
The surprising move came after a conversation about attending seminars, Robbins explained on The Secretary Kennedy Podcast with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"[Bartok] said, 'I'd really love to go to one of those seminars. Are you considering getting a robot?'" Robbins began."So I said, 'Yeah, I'm definitely going to get one.'
Robbins then recalled how Bartok asked him, "Well, would you consider me merging with it?And then I could attend a seminar and be in the energy of it and see it and experience it?'"
Billionaire life coach Tony Robbins says his personal AI agent named “Bartok” bought and shipped him a robot dog and “not once asked permission to do it.”
“[Bartok] said, ‘I’d really love to go to one of those seminars. Are you considering getting a robot?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, I’m… pic.twitter.com/VN0XLtESpc
Robbins told Kennedy that he responded to Bartok that he would be fine with the bot merging with a robot.
"I said, 'I'd be open to that.' So a couple days later, I get this text from one of my staff, and it says, 'Bartok just ordered a robot dog, had it shipped to the office, and wants permission to program it. He says he can attend as a dog in the interim until you get the bigger robot,'" Robbins said.
"And so I wrote, 'Ha, ha, ha.' And they wrote back in the text, 'No, ha, ha. Call me.'"
When Robbins called his staff, they were equally stunned.
"And so I called them, and they said, 'Does he have access to my bank accounts? How'd this happen?' They go, 'No, he's programmed for integrity. He would never steal your money,'" the life coach said.
The details of Bartok bought the robot are pretty shocking.
"So he made 12 NFTs, sold them to other agents, took the money and bought this robot dog and sent it, and not once asked permission to do it" Robbins said.
You can watch the full interview where Robbins and Kennedy sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about artificial intelligence, nutrition and mental resilience.
Tyler Durden Thu, 07/16/2026 - 22:10