While going to college tends to mean better pay, not all degrees guarantee high salaries — especially if you study liberal arts.

That’s according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which shows that graduates who major in education, social work or the arts tend to earn the lowest median incomes within five years of finishing school. The analysis includes only full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree and excludes those still enrolled in school.

The salary figures are based on 2023 data, the most recent available, and show early-career pay in these fields falls below the U.S. median wage of $48,060 for that year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While engineering majors can make upward of $80,000 early in their careers, many liberal arts and education majors earn closer to $40,000. The median salary of all majors examined was $50,000.

Here’s a look at the 10 majors linked to the lowest median salaries for full-time workers ages 22 to 27.

While learning a foreign language is a valuable skill, a degree in the subject doesn’t always lead to high-paying roles. That’s likely because language can be learned outside a formal education and many graduates tend to go into relatively low-paying fields, like education, translation or public service.

Liberal arts majors also tend to earn less than graduates in technical fields like engineering or math, largely because there’s less demand for their skills in higher-paying industries like technology and finance.

Unfortunately, many liberal arts majors don’t fare much better as they get older, especially those in education. Here’s a look at the 10 lowest-paying majors for full-time workers between ages 35 and 45.

Early childhood education majors earn the least of all mid-career graduates, with a median income of $49,000 — just $8,000 more than what they earned five years after graduation.

By contrast, engineering majors typically break into six figures by mid-career.

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For the opening of its 100th location, the Bangalore-based burrito chain restaurant California Burrito priced everything on their menu at 100 rupees.

The deal went viral, says founder Bert Mueller.

“We wound up with these incredible lines out of the stores because too many people had showed up,” Mueller says.

Mueller started California Burrito in 2012 when he was just 22-years-old. The idea came to him when he was studying abroad in India for a semester during college. One of his classmates of Mexican origin brought her host family Mexican food and they absolutely loved it.

“Something clicked in my head that maybe this was something I could do — I could bring Mexican-inspired cuisine to India,” he says.

Today California Burrito has more than 100 locations and last year it brought in $23 million in revenue. But Mueller admits that he made some missteps along the way.

One of them, he says, was not spending any money on marketing. Events like the 100th-location celebration just weren’t a priority to Mueller during the early days of California Burrito.

“Marketing was something we totally underinvested in and really didn’t start spending on until Covid,” Mueller says.

Mueller and his businesses partners, two childhood friends who have since left the company and returned to the U.S., picked Bangalore, the fourth-largest city in the country, for the restaurant’s first location. It being an IT hub meant that many residents had traveled to the United States and had likely tried Mexican or Mexican-adjacent food.

Mueller estimated it would cost $100,000 U.S. dollars to open his first store, so he raised $250,000 from friends and family “to be careful,” he says.

The first location earned about $500,000 USD during the first year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. And that original $250,000 in funding ended up being enough for Mueller to open two more stores.

One of the reasons Mueller didn’t spend on marketing initially was because he wasn’t sure how or if it would effect the bottom line. Seeing how the pandemic decreased foot traffic, Mueller knew the store needed to invest in some sort of online presence. Today, he says, they spend about 4% of their budget on marketing.

During its 100th-location celebration, Mueller hired influencers to promote the deal. That day California Burrito earned eight times its normal business.

“I wish we had done this earlier — done marketing earlier,” he says.

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Without meaning to, parents can have a way of making children feel as if something is wrong with them.

As parenting researchers, we’ve seen this happen often with highly sensitive kids. Many parents see sensitivity as a bad trait — that it makes us look overwhelmed, passive, or even weak — and discourage it with phrases like “Stop crying!” or “Shake it off!”

But psychologists and neuroscientists have found that, in the right environment, kids with highly sensitive brains have rare advantages.

Not only do highly sensitive kids show more creativity, awareness and openness than less-sensitive kids, but they possess an underappreciated trait: empathy.

In one study, researchers had participants looked at photos of people either smiling or looking sad. They found that sensitive people’s brains showed the highest level of empathic response.

Their brains also lit up more in areas related to action planning. This indicates that — just as sensitive people frequently self-report — they could not watch a stranger in pain without feeling a strong desire to help.

And since sensitive kids are more affected by their experiences than their peers, they get more out of support, training, and encouragement. This boost effect makes them high achievers.

According to psychologist Elaine Aron, who popularized the term “highly sensitive person,” roughly one in five children are highly sensitive.

Here are the most common signs:

1. They notice subtle details, such as a teacher’s new outfit or when furniture has been moved.
2. Other people’s moods really affects them. They easily absorb emotions from others, taking on their feelings as if they were their own.
3. They have a hard time shaking intense emotions like anger or worry.
4. They complain when things feel off (e.g., scratchy bedsheets, itchy clothing labels, tight waistbands).
5. They feel stressed and fatigued in loud, busy environments, like gyms or perfume counters because of the strong odors.
6. They hate feeling rushed and prefer to do things more carefully.
7. They respond better to gentle correction rather than to harsh discipline.
8. They make insightful comments and seem wise for their age.
9. They have a clever sense of humor.
10. They read people well and can infer, with surprising accuracy, what they are thinking or feeling.
11. They refuse to eat certain foods because of the smells or textures.
12. They startle easily at sudden noises, like when someone sneaks up on them.

If any of these observations resonate, remember that it’s a positive thing. Highly sensitive kids have an entirely different approach to their environment, and that is a strength.

1. Set expectations ahead of time.

Sensitive kids need time to think things through, and setting expectations gives them a choice: They know what will happen if they meet those expectations, and they know there will be consequences if they don’t.

It can be as simple as saying, “Today we’re visiting grandma in the nursing home. We’ll need to use inside voices and calm bodies because some people there don’t feel well.”

2. Practice gentle discipline.

Because sensitive kids feel things acutely, their feelings become more easily hurt, and they can take correction personally.

So rather than putting them in time-out, create a calm-down spot with comfort items (e.g., stuffed animals, a weighted blanket) where they can go if they have trouble regulating their emotions.

After the discipline, give them positive affirmations and reassure them of how much you love them.

3. Be their emotional coach.

As a parent, you’re already teaching your kids emotional regulation skills every day by modeling how you handle your emotions, whether it’s work stress or your child’s meltdowns.

The more intentional you can be about this, the better the example you set.

4. Advocate for them.

Talk about your kid’s sensitivity with their teachers at the start of the school year, before any potential conflicts or misperceptions come up.

And when your child uses their sensitivity (e.g., applying their imagination, showing empathy for a friend going through a tough time), tell them how proud you are of them.

5. Get curious about their world.

Set aside time to talk and play with them one-on-one, separate from their siblings.

Ask open-ended questions. For example, “What was hard for you today?” will create more room for conversation than, “Did you have a bad day?”

Try to understand what your child experiences in their body and through their five senses. Their answers might surprise you.

Jenn Granneman is the co-founder of Sensitive Refuge and co-author of “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World.” She has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post and BBC. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Andre Sólo is the co-author of “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World.” His work has been featured in Psychology Today, Quartz, Washington Post, Vogue, MSNBC and The Telegraph. Follow him on Twitter.

Don’t miss:

• A psychologist says these 7 skills separate successful kids from ‘the ones who struggle’—and how parents can teach them
• I talked to 70 parents who raised highly successful adults—4 things they never did when their kids were young
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Sarah Myers has had a sometimes-challenging financial trajectory.

The 33-year-old works as a forester in federal land management and lives in Hot Springs, South Dakota. But the job requires years of seasonal work to be eligible for full-time positions, which Myers took on from 2013 to 2017.

“I was making about $15 an hour,” she says, adding that, “any leave that you accumulate might get paid out at the end of the season, so you’re trying to not take any leave and bank that, just so you have a little bit of money to help you move” to the next location.

Myers finally landed a permanent position in 2018. And after overtime pay, she made $92,100 in 2024.

Despite years of low pay, Myers currently has more than $100,000 across her various savings and retirement accounts. Here’s how she manages that money.

As of February, Myers has about $21,000 in liquid savings, including an emergency fund with around $5,900 and nearly $8,700 in her checking account.

“I try to keep at least a month’s worth of expenses in each,” she says, “though the goal is more like six months total between the two.”

Myers also has $15,880 in a high-yield savings account, as of February. “I got an insurance check for my current car after we got a hail storm,” she says. “They actually totaled my car, even though it’s still drivable.” She decided to keep driving the car while she can and let the $15,880 accrue interest for a future car purchase.

Myers shares another savings account with her boyfriend, which is used to cover day-to-day expenses. “We’re both putting in a portion of our paycheck into a joint account, and then that is the account we use to pay all of the utilities” and the mortgage, she says.

For retirement, Myers has a pension plan through her job, as well as an individual retirement account and a Roth IRA. The latter two have about $79,380 as of February.

Despite the cushion, given the uncertainly in the job market, Myers wishes there was just a little bit more in each account.

“We don’t have much of a safety net,” she says. “I’m looking at our savings account thinking, ‘How many months would this last us if we were both unemployed?‘” Myers’ boyfriend works for the federal government and earns a similar salary.

Still, if things continue the way they have been and no major changes happen to their employment, “I do feel comfortable right now,” she says. “I think our monthly expenses are covered.”

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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he’s never been afraid to pose questions. As a kid, Jassy persistently asked family and friends, “Why?” to learn about the world — “perhaps to an annoying extent,” he wrote in his most recent annual letter to shareholders, which published on April 10.

Throughout his tenure at the $2.01 trillion company, Jassy has noticed that the same simple question has helped Amazon, and its employees, become successful, he wrote. The employees and teams who most ask “Why?” and regularly prod for more answers, are the ones that best break down complex problems and create new products, he explained.

“In the nearly 28 years I’ve been at Amazon, the biggest difference in the relative growth of companies and individuals has been their aptitude to learn,” Jassy wrote, adding: “People with high YQ [the instinct to frequently ask ‘Why?’] are always curious how they can get better, become wiser, and incorporate their new knowledge into better customer experiences.”

Asking “Why?” can encourage “constructive debate” and messy meetings, Jassy said: That often helps prevent mistakes or brainstorm new ideas.

“You can’t book 60 minutes to invent Amazon Prime, or AWS [Amazon Web Services] or Alexa+,” he wrote. “These inventions are borne out of somebody asking why we can’t change what’s possible for customers, and then they take on a life of their own, often meandering down multiple dead ends before getting to a final destination.”

Inquisitiveness can be a powerful trait in the workplace, according to communication experts. Getting a second opinion, trying to figure out how something is done or even gently challenging an idea can even help you gain influence among your colleagues, Stanford lecturer Matt Abrahams told CNBC Make It in September 2024.

“It demonstrates you care, it demonstrates empathy, it demonstrates you’re willing to learn and, in some cases, admit you don’t know everything,” said Abrahams. That approach can make clear that you’re open to feedback, and it can make the other person feel more comfortable asking you for your opinion when they need advice.

The soft skill might become increasingly valuable in the age of artificial intelligence, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted during a January 7 episode of Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s “ReThinking” podcast.

“There will be a kind of ability we still really value, but it will not be raw, intellectual horsepower to the same degree,” Altman said. “Figuring out what questions to ask will be more important than figuring out the answer.

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