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Liberal Arts Majors, LSAT, GMAT, and Pay
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By Gabriel Martinez, September 20, 2010 in Outside the Classroom, Professional Development

To do well in a professional-school entrance exam you need to have majored in a related pre-professional field, right?  Wrong.  Liberal arts majors (broadly construed as science, social science, and humanities) do better than professional majors at the LSAT (for law school) and the GMAT (for business school).

Of course not every history major decides to go on to business school.  Those who do, however, do very well in the GMAT.  

Perhaps just as surprisingly, some liberal arts majors do better than business and other professional majors at overall career pay.

There's an interesting pattern, oft-noted.  Liberal arts majors (such as economics) might begin at a lower pay scale.  But over time they catch up and overcome their professionally-majored peers.

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1 Comment
Lee Trepanier on Sep 21, 2010 at 10:12 am

If they can find a job in this economy!

about the author

Gabriel Martinez
Gabriel Martinez

I am Associate Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Ave Maria University. I have been in the Economics Department since its beginning and have taught over fifteen different courses at Ave Maria University, particularly in the areas of macroeconomics, international economics, development economics, Catholic social teaching, economic history, and social philosophy. My two favorite courses to teach are Intermediate Macroeconomics and Markets, State, and Institutions.

My work is in the general area of international finance and open-economy macroeconomics, with a focus on developing countries. My dissertation focused on the 1999 economic collapse in Ecuador,using a combination of historical, theoretical, and empirical analyses. My paper on the role of deregulation, moral hazard, and overconfidence in the Ecuadorian financial crisis was published by the Cambridge Journal of Economics. Financial crises are a perennial topic, with causes that are complex and deep, inextricably intermingled with politics and ethics. My Ph.D. is from the University of Notre Dame.