Philosophy majors are smarter than others — and tend to make more money

By Scotty Hendricks.

Adam Smith was a philosophy professor before he turned his attention to economics and wrote his famous book The Wealth of Nations in 1776. In 1759 he wrote a philosophy book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. That link has the complete text of the book.

Now excerpts from the Hendricks article:

"The myth that philosophers are doomed to bankruptcy goes back to the first philosopher, Thales. One story about him tells that he was challenged to put his love of wisdom to good use and earn some money. He used his knowledge of cyclical weather patterns to buy olive presses at a low price and then sell them the next season when he knew the weather would ensure a good harvest. Aristotle concluded that Thales “demonstrated that it is easy for philosophers to become rich, if they want to; but that is not their object in life.”"

"According to the University of Illinois, the average salary for a philosophy graduate who finds work within six months of graduation is $60,069. This puts them above economics majors and just below physics majors. Other sources report similar figures.

They also enjoy a respectable increase when one considers mid-career earnings. The median philosophy major can expect to earn a salary of more than $80,000. This is higher than that earned by business management or chemistry majors. And according to data from Payscale, those with only an undergraduate degree in philosophy rank 16th for mid-career median earnings."

"For comparison, the census reports that the median income for a household in the U.S. was $70,784 in 2021. It’s also not the case that a few philosophy majors make millions while an army of thinkers begs for food. Their unemployment rate is near that of physics majors, for example. 

 

Philosophy majors are smarter than most people, and smart people tend to make more money. Philosophy majors enjoy some of the highest scores on graduate-level exams (for example, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, and MCAT). In addition, if you include high school students who say they plan to study philosophy, they also do extremely well on the SATs and ACTs. More generally, philosophy majors are estimated to have the third-highest average IQ scores of any college major."

 

"philosophy and religious studies graduates (the two groups are often combined in data) do better on tests after they graduate than one would expect based on how they performed on college entry exams such as the ACT."