Grads from College earn six-figure salaries

It's a common belief at Penn.

If you want to make money, go to Wharton. Don't waste your time in the College.

In an effort to dispel this myth, the College of Arts and Sciences recently published a brochure entitled Careers and a Liberal Education. The 25-page brochure showcases the value, figuratively and monetarily, of a liberal arts education at Penn.

Interviews with successful Penn graduates from a variety of years, such as 1979 graduate and NBC News Correspondent Ron Allen, are interspersed with graphs and charts analyzing data from a 2001 survey of members of the classes of 1986 and 1987. Fifteen years after these College students graduated, their median salary is $112,000 and their mean salary is $164,000.

"College deans and faculty are a little bit reluctant to talk about careers and salaries because that's not what we're really about," College Dean Richard Beeman said. "But I wanted to give students the reassurance to make the most of their four years at Penn and to concentrate on what they love. If you do that, the career thing will take care of itself."

Since the College purposely does not offer an education designed to train people for specific careers, some students wonder what the connection is between their liberal arts education and what they plan to do to earn a living.

In addition to the financial data, the College interviewed a range of Penn graduates for the brochure. The goal was to illustrate that students who complete their undergraduate work in the College are not limited to careers as teachers, writers or scientists, but rather are equipped to succeed in many fields.

The 10 College alums profiled are men and women of all ages, and represent a diverse collection of careers. Each person's occupation, graduation date, major, favorite class, student activities and current activities are listed along with a full page picture and a short biography.

One of the messages of the brochure is to follow one's passion and do what one loves -- like 1992 graduate Katherine Grant Walker did.

The actress may be better known by her stage name, Kate Jennings Grant. She was an English major at Penn and says her favorite classes were modern poetry with Al Filreis and Shakespeare with Margreta DeGrazia.

Nearly 10 years after graduating, Grant has had roles on Broadway, off Broadway and on television programs including Law and Order and Sex and the City.

"You will be most successful following your passion," Grant says in the brochure. "Get the best education in a subject that excites you, and you will never have to worry about making a living."

Every five years since members of the classes of 1986 and 1987 graduated, Career Services has surveyed them to stay informed about what kinds of graduate programs and careers Penn alums pursue.

"Penn is very interesting in that, for the vast majority of College graduates every year, their choice is to go to work rather than graduate school," Associate Director of Career Services Peggy Curchack said.

While 20 to 30 percent enter graduate school immediately after graduation, 85 percent had received a graduate degree within 10 years of graduating from Penn. The most popular graduate programs for College students are law and medical schools.

After law and medicine, the profession employing the largest percentage of College graduates is financial services. Ten percent of college graduates are in this field and earn a median salary of $300,000 and a mean salary of $471,462.

"If you want access to the most interesting work in the world, get a liberal arts degree," Curchack said. "The brochure is the evidence for this because it tells the truth about the choices people made. They present an immense range of choice, from actress to teacher to banker. That breadth is an outcome of studying liberal arts."

However, Beeman said the College will not send each student a copy of the high quality publication for fear that it will only end up buried underneath piles of mail or in the trash can. Students can pick up a copy in the College office, but Beeman said he will be aggressive in distributing the booklet to parents.

"Every day, we see parents putting a lot of pressure on their children to major in something 'practical' so they can get 'the right job,'" Beeman said. "We believe that advice is wrong.

"What is needed is critical intelligence and basic learning and communication skills," he added. "We really do believe that these are skills that, for people who work at it, the world is completely open to them."

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