Taking on two college majors can mean much more work for students, but it may bring a greater reward.
According to a 2021 paper in the Columbia Economic Review, pursuing a double major almost always predicts greater earnings than pursuing either major alone. A combination of business and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), two business majors or two STEM majors will be the most lucrative.
“Those with STEM or business degrees, or some combination of those double majors, seem to have around double the benefit of every other major on its own and at least a 40% boost to earnings relative to double majors with neither STEM nor business,” says Ammar Plumber, the paper’s author. Plumber, who double majored in economics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted the research for his honors dissertation.
A 2016 paper by Alison Del Rossi of St. Lawrence University in New York and Joni Hersch of the Vanderbilt University Law School in Tennessee also concluded that a combination of business and STEM provides the greatest economic benefit.
“Double majoring is one educational strategy that may combine advantages of technical training with liberal arts education, allowing access to higher paying occupations as well as cultivating critical thinking and communication skills,” the researchers wrote.
According to Del Rossi and Hersch, about 20% of college students graduate with a double major.
What Is a Double Major?
Generally, a double major refers to a degree in which a student has earned enough credits for majors in two different, but often related, disciplines. Students typically earn one degree with two majors that are on the same bachelor’s degree track. Some universities allow students to double major in two unrelated fields and degree tracks, though.
A double major is different from a dual-degree program, which typically confers two separate diplomas and may require more credit hours. For example, a dual-degree at Stanford University in California requires 225 credit hours to graduate compared to 180 for a double major.
[READ: Choosing a Major in College: What to Know.]
Double Major Requirements
A bachelor’s degree typically consists of 120 credit hours, though school requirements vary. A double major can usually be achieved within those 120 hours, or the minimum required by a university, but that may depend on the school and what the majors are, says Neil Ralston, a journalism professor and academic adviser at Lindenwood University in Missouri.
Some majors might require students to take more than the minimum number of credits, but Ralston says most of the students he works with graduate in four years.
Universities typically allow students to count general education and major-specific classes for multiple majors, he says, which can help students progress through a double major efficiently. For instance, a student majoring in journalism and political science could take a course like Press Law and Ethics and potentially count it toward both majors.
“When students are looking for a second major, that’s the kind of thing they might want to look for so they’re not spending extra semesters in class,” Ralston says.
Not every school does that, though. Stanford, for example, dictates that for a double major, “both sets of requirements must be fulfilled without overlap.”
But Del Rossi says their research found no evidence that people with double majors spend more time in college.
[Read: A Guide to STEM Majors.]
Pros and Cons of Double Majoring
Tackling multiple majors can have drawbacks as well as benefits. Depending on the college, students may need to juggle two sets of academic requirements. Double majoring just to have it on a resume is the wrong approach, experts say.
Students should consider whether a second major will help develop a new skill and open up doors to more employers, says Colleen Paparella, founder of DC College Counseling, a college admissions counseling firm.
Students need to balance the practicality of a major with their passions or skills, Paparella says. She adds that a second major is most valuable for students early in their career. Later on, employers are typically more interested in their work experience than their college majors, she says. Some exceptions would be education or accounting, where certification is required.
“So they have to really think, ‘What are you getting out of this?'” she says. “If it’s going to require you to stay an extra year or extra semester, what’s the return on that investment, and is it worth it? Sometimes it’s not.”
Graduate student Connor Leshner, who double majored in psychology and sociology at Arizona State University in 2018, says his double major forced him out of his comfort zone, introducing him to new concepts and helping him form working and social relationships with new people.
“I also learned different types of research paradigms that I have since used, like focus groups and interviews,” he wrote in an email.
There isn’t much downside to pursuing a double major for students who are already taking a full course load, says Conor Williams, an education researcher and writer who majored in government and Spanish while at Bowdoin College in Maine. But one potential drawback is that double majoring might prevent students from taking some electives, since those hours are typically used up on major-related courses. This could result in a more challenging schedule.
Williams, who graduated in 2005, says senior year ended up being heavier than it otherwise might have been, because both majors required extensive projects as part of graduation.
“If there is a downside to double majoring, it’s energy, stress and time in your young early-career moment,” he says. “Frankly, that’s when you have the energy, so why not invest heavily? Why not do the extra major when you’re young and can handle staying up late and getting a little bit of extra work done? It’s going to be a lot harder to pick up those skills in your 40s.”
When to Declare a Double Major
Schools typically don’t require students to declare a major until the end of their sophomore year, though in some cases students declare on their college application.
Paparella says she advises students to wait until after they’ve started college to declare. And she suggests that before students declare a major, much less a second major, they take courses they’re interested in and look for internships or jobs that give them related work experience.
“What you think a certain career is going to be like when you’re a teenager might be so different from what that actual career is like, for better and worse,” she says.
For students who are certain about what they want to study and think a double major might be for them, there are benefits to declaring early, Ralston says. Academic advisers can help students come up with a strategic plan to map out courses over their four years.
“If you start on one major in your freshman or sophomore year and then add a major your junior year, the scheduling may be more difficult. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but it just may be more difficult to schedule classes when it works best for you,” he says.
Some students try to stagger their scheduling so that they take their general education classes first, their major classes next and then their second major classes third.
“Scheduling never works quite that way,” Ralston says. “I always suggest you work on all of your areas almost simultaneously until maybe your last semester when you can focus on your major or majors.”
For students pursuing a second major, he recommends that they have a separate academic adviser for each major to make sure they meet all of their requirements. Some schools may require students to formally declare two specific advisers while others may have a more relaxed policy, he says. He also suggests that students make sure at least one of their advisers is paying attention to their general education requirements.
Lucrative Double Major Combinations
Much of the value in a double major comes from the types of degrees paired together. While combinations of STEM and business degrees are the most lucrative, Plumber’s research found that some degrees paired with an arts and humanities degree can also yield a strong economic benefit.
Arts and humanities majors alone don’t tend to lead to higher future earnings, and the financial benefit is also minimal when pairing two majors in arts or humanities, he says. However, pairing one with either a business or STEM major could be about twice as lucrative, his research shows.
When figuring the financial benefit of double majoring, he says other factors need to be considered, such as the student’s skill level in each area.
Although pairing business and STEM majors appears to lead to the highest earnings, on average, “it may be true that for a particular individual studying STEM, the best thing to pair that with would be arts (or) humanities rather than business,” he says. “That has to be made on an individual basis with a variety of considerations.”
Is a Double Major Worth It?
Williams started taking Spanish classes in college in an effort to obtain fluency and decided to make it his official second major when he realized he was close to the requirements. It was more of a quest for a personal skill than a deliberate future career decision at the time, he says, but it’s a decision that’s paid off decades later.
“My career took some of the course that it took because of that double major,” he says. “I wouldn’t have the experience or the success I had as a teacher or as a researcher on the topics that I work on if I hadn’t been able to use that Spanish fluency.”
He now works as a senior fellow and policy researcher at The Century Foundation, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The majority of his work, he says, is focused on English learners and children of immigrants in U.S. schools. His ability to speak Spanish fluently has opened doors that wouldn’t have otherwise been available, he says.
Leshner credits his double major with helping him get into graduate school. He’s working toward a doctoral degree in social psychology at Trent University in Ontario, which he hopes will help him land a high-paying job in the future. That’s yet to be determined, he says, adding that his honors degree might be more beneficial.
“So, was it worth it? My answer is a resounding, ‘Eh, maybe,'” he says.
Williams says for him, the answer is simple.
“If you have one major, you have more options than if you didn’t go to college,” he says. “If you have two majors, you’ve got more options than one.”
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How to Manage a Double Major originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 02/02/23: This article has been updated to include new information.
