Share of College Graduates Who Are Generally Satisfied with Their Job, by Field of Bachelor’s and Highest Degree, 2019

Share of College Graduates Who Are Generally Satisfied with Their Job, by Field of Bachelor’s and Highest Degree, 2019

Humanities graduates are similar to those from most other fields in their level of job satisfaction. Almost 85% of workers with a terminal bachelor’s degree in the humanities reported they were satisfied with their job, which was just a few percentage points smaller than the share for college graduates generally. The difference between the humanities and the fields with the largest shares of satisfied graduates—health/medical sciences and education—was eight and nine percentage points, respectively.

For graduates from most fields, those earning an advanced degree were not appreciably more likely to be satisfied with their jobs. But for bachelor’s degree recipients from the humanities, having an advanced degree was more consequential. While still modest, the difference in job satisfaction between the field’s terminal bachelor’s and advanced degree holders was more than three times greater than for college graduates generally.25

Endnotes

• 25National Survey of College Graduates, 2019.