Ag School Degrees Useless? Think Again

In a recent story in FarmLife, the exclusive magazine for Massey Ferguson customers, Murray State University alumni panelist Kelly Brannon broached the topic of the hotly contested 2012 Yahoo! article that listed agriculture as the most useless college major. She and her fellow panelists had all seen the report when it came out. And they all shrugged it off as subjective, maybe even wrong.

Ag school enrollment is on the uptick, and degrees in the field are in high demand.

The article was based on a study released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which surveyed some 1,000 employers on future hiring plans. The result? An agriculture major ranked No. 1 in terms of “most useless.” To add further insult, rounding out the top five were animal science and horticulture as No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

The article cited university programs being cut and fewer farm jobs due to consolidation. The article also quoted a U.S. Department of Labor projection that there will be “64,000 fewer jobs in this field over the next seven years.”

However, several other media outlets and ag-related organizations, such as Huffington Post and FFA, chose to challenge the article, pointing out why the report was inaccurate. Interestingly, later that same year, Yahoo! posted a “Best and Worst Degrees for Employment,” and agriculture was voted as the No. 3 lowest unemployment area of study. Clumsy wording notwithstanding, that meant ag was suddenly near the top for most USEFUL of those degrees studied.

Read the rest of the article to see what others had to say about the original Yahoo! Article at http://www.myfarmlife.com/features/ag-school-degrees-useless-think-again/. You can also see the entire special report on the recent boom in ag school enrollment and its implications at http://www.myfarmlife.com/advantage/major-changes-the-new-boom-in-ag-education/.