Interesting topic.
Not all CS graduates are going to make the big bucks. It depends on where you end up, in what town, and who you’re working for. In my case, a CS major / Math minor, I work for a small 100-person company selling custom electronics to the DoD, and make far less than all my colleagues. After 20 years at the same company, I still haven’t broken the 6-figure mark. The majority reason is discrimination because I’m hearing impaired. On the other hand, I’m the guy who’s got stuff ticking all over the planet protecting our soldiers in harm’s way - there’s a bit of satisfaction from that. Easy job too - no stress at all.
My younger brother, a real smart kid, straight-A’s all K-12, and a 4.0 in Electrical Engineering at a prestigious University, decided to become a medical doctor - this after I’d explained engineering personalities and how his personality wasn’t one I was accustomed to. So, after another year for pre-med, and then four for medical school, and yet another three as a Resident - he’s set-up very well. It took him less than a year after becoming board certified to pay back all the student loans and start reaping the rewards - not only monetary - but all the perks, the free stuff. For instance, his family of five children often go on trips to various parts of the world paid for by the organizers of the medical seminars he attends. Deals made in exchange for “medical advice”, e.g. egress windows installed in his mansion. Doctors have prestige, as well, and this further enhances their financial opportunities.
Obviously, English and History degrees do not make money, necessarily. It can be lucrative to be a technical writer for a software outfit or apply one’s history degree to Corporate history maintenance. That is if one’s lucky - one English major I know works at a car rental agency pushing paperwork.
The real jobs for the future are going to be farming and petrochemical. As the oil age winds down, and brains are required to figure out how to live with less - that is, two barrels instead of three - it is the new-age farmers and petrochemical engineers that save potentially millions of lives.
The day Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar well dries up, it is experiencing higher “water cut” each year, we’ll be seeing any remaining oil, a fungible, shipped off to countries who pay the most and it isn’t going to be the USA - there’s too many combining nickels in India and China to obtain cooking fuel competing with our desire to drive to Wal-Mart in our SUV with a full belly to buy a plastic pumpkin. One day some of us will get to watch the left-out (Bay of Bengal to start) wave their arms into the cameras beseeching the rest of the world to help them survive … they will not.