Earlier this week, while waiting for an ultrasound, I struck up a conversation with the technician. She mentioned that her two-year certificate program required rigorous clinical training, that the pay was strong, and that her career prospects were excellent. Then she said something that stayed with me. She already had a bachelor’s degree when she went back to school for the certificate—because she couldn’t find work with it. The credential that finally opened the door was a two-year sonography certificate, not the four-year degree she’d already earned.
She told me getting into a sonography program in Rhode Island is nearly impossible due to limited clinical placements. So she went to Florida, where programs are plentiful but jobs are harder to come by. After graduating, she returned to Rhode Island and quickly found work.
Her story ties back to a common question families ask: which credentials actually lead to jobs?
Families evaluate higher education differently than they did a decade ago, caring less about campus culture or academic prestige and more about career outcomes. They want to know whether a specific degree at a specific institution will produce a return that justifies the cost. Simultaneously, new federal policy aims to hold institutions directly accountable for those outcomes. Together, these forces are reshaping the portfolio decisions every CFO and president needs to make.
How to Think About the Value of a College Degree Program
At FuturED Finance, we frame it simply: Value = Price × Outcomes. When families evaluate a degree, they run this equation, considering the tuition, fees, room and board, the debt load, and, ultimately, career prospects.
This perspective has direct implications for institutional strategy. Schools that can demonstrate strong, field-specific career outcomes build a legitimate case for their price point. Those that can’t increasingly rely on discounts to attract students, which creates long-term financial pressure.
Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Projections program (2024-34), we can map the top bachelor’s degree fields against their most directly aligned occupational openings. The national average looks healthy, but the differences between disciplines tell a more complicated story.
Some Fields of Study are Flooded, and Others Need More Grads
The table below compares the top fields by bachelor’s degrees conferred (NCES, 2021-22) against BLS-projected annual openings in the most closely aligned occupations. Openings include both newly created positions and replacement demand from retirements and career changes.
| Field of Study (CIP) | Grads/Year | Aligned Openings/Year (BLS) | Supply/Demand Pattern | Key Nuance |
| Business | 375,400 | ~900,000+ | Shortage | Demand far exceeds supply; spans management, accounting, HR, marketing |
| Computer & Info Sciences | 104,874 | ~125,000+ (software devs alone) | Shortage | One occupation (software developers) alone exceeds total CS grad output |
| Health Professions (BS) | 263,800 | ~194,500 (nursing alone) | Roughly Balanced | Nursing-driven; tight coupling between credential and licensed occupation |
| Engineering | 126,037 | ~140,000 (growth over 10 yrs across all disciplines) | Roughly Balanced | Varies sharply by discipline; civil and industrial growing, petroleum declining |
| Education | 89,398 | ~93,200 (elementary teachers alone) | Roughly Balanced | Paper balance masks real shortages in STEM, special education, and rural markets |
| Communication / Journalism | 90,775 | Modest; reporting occupations declining | Mild Oversupply | PR and digital media growing, but traditional journalism contracting |
| Social Sciences & History | 151,100 | Very few bachelor’s-level named roles; most require master’s+ | Significant Oversupply | Graduates move into adjacent fields and use degree as general credential |
| Psychology | 126,944 | Almost none at bachelor’s level; psychologist roles require doctoral | Significant Oversupply | Largest gap between major name and bachelor’s-level job title |
| Visual & Performing Arts | 90,022 | Entire arts/media group adding only ~83,500 over 10 years | Significant Oversupply | Most lopsided field; majority of graduates work outside their named discipline |
Sources: NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 322.10 (2021-22 degrees conferred); BLS Employment Projections 2024-34, Table 1.1 (major occupational group employment change); BLS Career Outlook, “Education level and projected openings, 2024-34” (September 2025); BLS The Economics Daily, “Projected job openings in occupations typically requiring a bachelor’s degree, 2024-34” (March 12, 2026). Note: CIP-to-SOC crosswalks are directional; many graduates work outside their field’s named occupations.
Applied and professional programs such as business, computer science, and nursing generally produce graduates at levels that align with labor-market demand. Broad academic disciplines like psychology, social sciences, and the visual arts show significant structural oversupply because very few positions require those exact degrees.
That does not mean graduates in those fields are unemployable; many land roles in adjacent industries, using their degree as a general credential rather than filling an occupation that specifically requires it.
What We Mean by “Liberal Arts”
One challenge in this discussion is that the term “liberal arts” doesn’t communicate what many of the programs actually teach. Students hear it and think politically liberal, or assume it means painting and theater. Neither association does much for a 17-year-old trying to figure out whether a degree is going to pay off.
What students and families often overlook are the underlying skills liberal arts teaches: critical thinking, communication, writing, analysis, and the ability to solve unfamiliar problems. In many ways, these programs could just as accurately be described as critical thinking and communication degrees, problem-solving and writing-focused programs, or transferable skills degrees.
Those skills remain valuable. If anything, they may become more valuable as artificial intelligence takes over more routine tasks. Employers still need people who can contextualize data, navigate complexity, and lead teams through uncertainty.
The real issue is helping students understand how those skills translate into careers and ensuring that institutions provide clear information about likely outcomes, costs, and earnings.
Federal Accountability for Universities is Expanding
Students and families no longer solely drive the discussion around career outcomes. Policymakers are paying closer attention as well.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), signed into law on July 4, 2025, established a new federal earnings accountability framework known as the Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS). STATS ties university access to federal student loans with graduate earnings outcomes.
As proposed, undergraduate programs would need to show that their graduates earn more than working adults ages 25 to 34 with only a high school diploma. Graduate programs would be measured against earnings for bachelor’s degree holders. Programs that fail the earnings test in two of three consecutive years risk losing Direct Loan eligibility.
The details are still evolving. The Department of Education acknowledged that it currently lacks earnings data to evaluate roughly three-quarters of programs eligible for federal support, and final rulemaking will determine implementation timelines. Even so, the inclusion of STATS in this bill shows that institutions will face greater scrutiny of graduate outcomes than they have in the past.
The most at-risk degree programs with weak labor market alignment and high debt loads map almost exactly onto the fields with significant oversupply: arts, social sciences, and certain humanities programs at institutions with limited career support infrastructure.
Initial estimates suggest that STATS could flag approximately 6 percent of programs, serving roughly 650,000 students, as low-earning outcome programs under the proposed framework. That’s not a trivial number, and it won’t be distributed evenly across institutional types or disciplines.
What This Means for Your Program Portfolio
The ultrasound technician’s story is a useful frame of reference for thinking about institutional program strategy. Her two-year sonography certificate was tightly coupled to a specific licensed occupation with strong demand and limited supply. Her bachelor’s degree had no such coupling, which the labor market made painfully clear.
Most college and university program portfolios contain both types of programs. The question for finance and academic leadership is whether you know which programs are which, and whether you’re making enrollment, investment, and tuition-discount decisions that reflect that reality.
A few questions worth pressure-testing before 2027:
- Do you know your programs’ earnings outcomes at the four-digit CIP code level?
The STATS framework will measure you at that level. If you don’t know these numbers, your accreditor and the Department of Education will show you, publicly. - Are you subsidizing low-enrollment, low-earnings programs with tuition discounts from your high-demand programs?
That cross-subsidy may be acceptable as a values decision, but it needs to be intentional. - Have you engaged your academic leadership in a portfolio review that connects program costs, enrollment trends, and graduate earnings?
It’s easier to have that conversation now, before external scrutiny forces the issue. - Are there geographic mismatches in your career programming?
The sonography story isn’t unique. In many fields, clinical placement capacity, regional employer demand, and program supply are chronically misaligned.
The Path Forward
At the national level, the graduate-to-opening ratio of 1.65 openings per graduate is relatively favorable for students and universities. The field-level picture is more uneven. New federal accountability measures bring greater attention to those differences.
Institutions that view their program portfolio as a fixed legacy asset rather than a strategic financial decision may face increasing pressure from students, families, accreditors, and policymakers who are asking tougher questions about outcomes.
Remember the formula: Value = Price × Outcomes.
Institutions that invest in career-aligned programs, employer partnerships, and transparent outcomes data strengthen both student outcomes and their own financial position. They have a stronger case for their pricing.
Institutions that can’t demonstrate degree outcomes will continue to discount their way through enrollment season, eroding net tuition revenue while failing to address underlying program performance issues.
Weighing program performance doesn’t mean eliminating the liberal arts. It means giving students clearer information about what each major can deliver. The ultrasound technician’s experience is one example. She earned a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t find work in her field, and went back for a two-year certificate that finally delivered the career the first credential promised but didn’t provide. Higher education’s job is to help students avoid needing to make that correction in the first place, with transparent data to inform the choice before they make it.
That’s the work. And it starts with the numbers.
Sources & Further Reading
1. NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 322.10: Bachelor’s degrees conferred by field of study, 2021–22. nces.ed.gov
2. BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.1: Employment by major occupational group, 2024 and projected 2034 (published August 2025). bls.gov/emp
3. BLS Career Outlook: “Education level and projected openings, 2024–34,” September 2025. bls.gov/careeroutlook
4. BLS The Economics Daily: “Projected job openings in occupations typically requiring a bachelor’s degree, 2024–34,” March 12, 2026. bls.gov/opub/ted
5. U.S. Department of Education: NPRM — “Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell: Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability.” Federal Register, April 20, 2026. Public comment period closed May 20, 2026; final rule pending as of June 2026.
5a. Community College Daily: “Rebuilding the rules of higher ed’s opportunity ladder,” June 21, 2026 — notes ED acknowledged it lacks earnings data for approximately three-quarters of eligible programs.
6. Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS): Recap of AHEAD Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, January 2026. ticas.org
7. NASFAA: Gainful Employment 2026 tracker. nasfaa.org/ge_2026
8. Holland & Knight: “U.S. Department of Education Proposes Earnings Premium Metric for Postsecondary Programs,” April 28, 2026. hklaw.com