A recent article in the Times Newspaper here in the UK revealed that Philosophy graduates earn more money after graduation than most other degree fields.
timesonline.co.uk/article/0, … 46870.html
If anyone knows where the full article is, please provide the link.
What we really need is an article on “Ilp Legends”, and what they earn. Most likely nothing.
I hope this finally shuts up the “What use is a Philosophy degree!” Brigade.
Do they earn this kind of money working within their field of activity ?
This survey was across all fields of work, concentrating on what degree the particular employee had. So it’s based on averages.
Actually within Philosophy, Ive heard larger sums than 19k right off the bat for PhD holders such as research positions, grant funded lecturer positions and publishing positions.
great question . . . I’d like to know. I am assuming not, but that could be a sign of philosophies benefits.
philosophy can make you logical which is essential to survive financially, but if you want to succeed you often need to learn boldness, risk taking, people skilss and creativity. I see these traits in some folks who enjoy philosophy, but not all.
so you spend almost a decade of your life looked inside a class room, and only make 19k. That is not a lot of money if you ask me. I think I’ll keep on with my music degree, . . . yeah, i’m gonna make millions. 
I prefer doing philosophy at work, like right now. Not stuck in a class room forced to think about what my teachers spews at me, and then graduate and make nothing. Sounds useless to me, but if one likes the class room stuff, then go for it.
You have misunderstood. This is about the average salaries for graduates.
Academics here in Oxford can earn upwards of 40 000 GBP per annum from ‘sitting in classrooms’ but that is not the point of this article/survey. The point is that employers in NON-DIRECTLY RELATED professions are more likely to give higher salaries to graduates of philosophy (once they decide to employ them) than they are to graduates of any other degree.
Another way of looking at it is to say that if an employer has a choice to give the higher paid sales/admin/teaching job to a philosopher or an accountant, he or she is more likely to give it to the philosopher. One can reasonably infer from this that they consider the philosophy graduate to be ‘worth more’ than the other graduate. For example. Of course this is grossly oversimplifying what is a complicated set of data but in the absence of the actual data and with the goal being only to reinforce the way you should be looking at this thread, it will suffice.
Hopefully you understand now that this survey concludes that philosophy graduates end up doing all sorts of jobs as do graduates of most degrees, and that at graduate stage the philosophers are being paid more than anyone else.
OBW
I’m a little confused by the numbers. In the States 19,000 per year would be reserved for high school graduates or drop outs. I need some kind of reference, how much does say a first year highschool teacher make, or someone that works fast food. Or perhaps a reference on the cost of living would be more appropriate and better for a reference.
That’s 19 000 pounds which is about 36 000 US dollars. It’s more than twice the amount per hour that a fast food guy would earn (about $20 per hour vs. minimum UK wage which is about $9 per hour). By comparison, all other degree graduates, medicine, law, accounting etc all earn less on average than this sum. So even if the individual figures are confusing, take it as a whole picture that philosophy graduates are earning more than any other type of graduate, and that statement includes everyone graduating in any given year - so it actually doesnt matter where the bar is set, only that philosophers are jumping the highest out of all.
That appears to have nothing to do with the part of Earth that isn’t in Britain. By the way, what does a “GBP” equal in real money? 
Why is it that every music major thinks they will make millions? 
It’s funny because a few of my good friends are music majors and they say the exact same thing!
Anyway, as I said before philosophy is the number one major for law schools and business shools.
law school = GREAT MONEY afterwards
business school = GREAT MONEY afterwards
http://www.clemson.edu/caah/philosophy/website/html/prelaw.html
http://www.lclark.edu/~phil/gre.html
(I could list 100 more sites about this)…
So you might need to do a little more schooling to get those big bucks, but if you’re majoring in philosophy i’m sure you won’t mind school-since wisdom is the key to success 
Good point, Socratic!
P-
I told you the last time you asked!! 1 of Her Majesties Great British Pounds is worth 1.88 of your American Greenbacks. Vacationing in your country is a pleasure - it’s like visiting the third world, we get so much more for our money…
Obw
I get that philosophy majors make more than other graduates, I was interested in finding out where it puts someone financially to make 19,000 quid. Little off topic, but I think you answered it for me. thanks.
Of course, this sample set might be very limited. What they are looking at, evidently, is philosophy majors who have a job. For all I know, that could be like eight people.
I’d be interested to know the median income is for ALL philosophy majors unemployed or employed. I suspect it won’t be impressive.
Nihilistic- Oh I see, well 19k is the average, so that figure, even though it is the highest of all fields, is dragged down by those who dont get great salaries. If a graduate gets a job with a salary around 20k he will be very pleased, and if its in London you might expect a little more given life is more expensive there.
So for Philosophy to have the highest average, it means Philosophy graduates are getting over 20K in many cases and more often than other graduates.
Shinton- frankly I doubt such a basic error would have been made by the statisticians and any discrepencies would have been formally allowed for.
No more or less impressive than the same set for any other field. It is the nature of unemployment to not yield the subject much of an income, regardless of his degree field. Clearly this survey would not be useful if it included the incomes of the unemployed.
Heh. I think you have too much faith in the “goodness of statisticians” especially with a motive.
That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? “Because obw says so” without any data isn’t particularly impressive to me.
Sure it would, especially if the unemployed were numerous. The more zeros the more the calculation would be affected. The number would then be indicative of “median income expected for philosophy majors” not “median income of philosophy majors who are employed”.
One could argue these points forever. If more philosophy graduates were unemployed then there would be more zeros. But if there were net less philosophy graduates then that minority would be smaller than the minority of unemployed accounting graduates (or whatever) and so things would balance. But then what about the mixed major minor graduates, considering philosophy is not always a single honours subject? Ah, but what about the increase in popularity of the joint honours degree prog. in the last five years? And so on and so on. Your point is that surveys are not definitive. Nobody is going to disagree with that. Even the surveryists. Just as they cannot definitively say Philosophy really is the best paid graduate degree, you can similarly not say that it defninitively is not or as you seem to want to imply, that it is actually at a lower or somehow disadvantageous position in comparison to other fields. I’ve got an agenda here to suggest Philosophy is better than it is and (because of that?) you have an agenda to say it is worse than it is. Throughout these personal issues, the survey still shows that from the data collected, whatever that data may have been and whatever faith we should place in professionals who put survetys together, Philosophy graduates can expect to earn more on average than any other graduate field in the UK.
p.s. the UK bit should be obvious as the source I cited was a British Newspaper… even has a .co.uk! 
Actually, for me it is much simpler than all that.
I think this study is a bit poorly done. The question that springs to mind immediately is, “is it because these people have a philosophy degree and are employed that they earn more, or is it because they have a philosophy degree AND some other quality that got them INTO employment that they earn more?”
The claim is that philosophy graduates earn more. The precise claim is some people who graduate with a philosophy degree and become employed earn more. It seems to me you’d have us believe that that is “because of the philosophy degree” and in fact you admitted as much when you said “I hope that shuts up the people who say philosophy degrees are worthless.” In fact, we don’t know if the degree has any bearing whatsoever on the income of these people who are employed. It would be MORE interesting, to me, to see numbers based on ALL of those who majored in Philosophy and what they earned. That, to me, would be a better indicator that a philosophy degree makes some difference, or at the very least that people who choose a philosophy degree have characteristics about them that earn them more money. (thus defeating the stereotype that a philosophy degree is largely pointless–even if it does happen to be characteristics of the people going into the field)
I’ll come right out and say that I, personally, don’t think a philosophy degree is the way to go if you want money. I think most people when presented with a philosophy degree will nod their head politely and send you up the street to do something else unless you have some other factor working in your favor. This study doesn’t really address this particular aspect.
We know nothing about how this study was done…we only have the results. You don’t even understand the results. This is about what graduates earn - NOT about what philosophy degree wielding people in employment earn. This is about graduate salaries.
Hence: