Which college majors have the largest and smallest underemployment rates? The New York Fed has released its results for February 2023.

With 56% of the population of our nation now believing that college is not worth the cost, it’s worth taking a careful look at the college majors for which the underemployment rates are highest. The New York Fed releases statistics on underemployment, unemployment and median wages for early career and mid-career workers with bachelors’ degrees in different majors once a year, and we take a look at this information here.

What exactly does “underemployment” mean? Here’s what the New York Fed says: “The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. A job is classified as a college job if 50 percent or more of the people working in that job indicate that at least a bachelor’s degree is necessary; otherwise, the job is classified as a non-college job.”

The plot below shows the 25 college majors with the highest underemployment rates as of February 2023 according to the New York Fed. Unfortunately, there are no real surprises on the list.

Nor should it be a surprise that the college major with the lowest underemployment rate is Nursing. Pharmacy, various engineering disciplines, several education majors and construction services round out the top ten least underemployed college majors.

The top and bottom of the early career and mid-career median wage lists are included below as well.