A college degree can help you financially get ahead, compared to a high school diploma alone.

In 2022, workers ages 25 to 34 with a bachelor's degree earned a median annual salary of $66,600, according to the latest National Center for Education Statistics data. Their counterparts with only a high school education earned $41,800 a year.

But not all college grads see that salary boost. Degree holders in studio arts, for example, earn a median salary of just $40,000, according to a recent Bankrate analysis of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey data.

Bankrate looked at median salaries among workers and job seekers with at least a bachelor's degree, along with unemployment rates and advanced degree rates, to rank the most and least valuable college degrees. 

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Studio arts degree-holders have low earnings prospects and an unemployment rate of 4.6%, nearly double the rate for all college graduates — 2.4% in June 2024, per New York Fed data — all of which factored into it being named the least valuable college degree. 

Here are the 10 least valuable college degrees in 2024, according to Bankrate:

1. Studio arts

• Median salary: $40,000
• Unemployment rate: 4.6%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 28.1%

2. Drama and theater arts

• Median salary: $44,000
• Unemployment rate: 4.9%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 29.0%

3. Visual and performing arts

• Median salary: $40,000
• Unemployment rate: 3.8%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 28.7%

4. Film, video and photographic arts

• Median salary: $46,000
• Unemployment rate: 5.5%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 13.8%

5. Miscellaneous fine arts

• Median salary: $45,000
• Unemployment rate: 4.8%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 15.0%

6. Clinical psychology

• Median salary: $45,500
• Unemployment rate: 2.9%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 69.1%

7. Communication technologies

• Median salary: $50,000
• Unemployment rate: 5.3%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 11.9%

8. Library science

• Median salary: $48,000
• Unemployment rate: 3.2%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 69.1%

9. Fine arts

• Median salary: $45,000
• Unemployment rate: 3.7%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 25.0%

10. Other foreign languages (excluding French, German, Latin and other more common foreign languages)

• Median salary: $53,000
• Unemployment rate: 4.8%
• Percentage of workers with advanced degrees: 45.2%

The most valuable bachelor's degrees, by Bankrate's standards, have a trifecta of high salaries, low unemployment rates and low rates of workers with advanced degrees.

The arts-related degrees on the least-valuable list do have low rates of workers with advanced degrees — but they fall short on the other two factors, with median annual salaries below $50,000 and high unemployment rates, compared to other grads.

Among the 10 least valuable bachelor's degrees, just two see grads earning at least $50,000 a year: communications technologies and other foreign languages. Communications tech majors have a relatively high unemployment rate of nearly 5.3%, though, suggesting that higher paying jobs may be harder to come by.

People with bachelor's degrees in less-common foreign languages have a slightly lower unemployment rate, but nearly half (45%) of these grads have advanced degrees. Even larger shares (roughly 69%, each) of library science and clinical psychology undergrads hold higher credentials.

That data suggests an advanced degree — and the years of school required to to earn it — may be needed to to fare better financially in those careers.

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