Liberal Arts and General Studies Degrees

Associate awards dominate volume, while bachelor’s cohorts show higher earnings

“Liberal arts” and “general studies” are separate federal fields of study. A third residual category covers related programs classified as “Other.”

The chart tracks associate and bachelor’s awards across all three fields from 2014–15 through 2025–26. Each downloadable row includes its encoded field-and-credential group.

For Liberal Arts and Sciences/Liberal Studies, median earnings were $24,640 for associate cohorts one year after completion. Bachelor’s cohorts had median earnings of $33,395.

Four years after completion, those medians were $44,569 and $54,958, respectively.

For General Studies, one-year median earnings were $25,370 for associate cohorts and $32,668 for bachelor’s cohorts. Four-year medians were $45,544 and $53,411, respectively.

These College Scorecard figures inherit outcomes from the broader liberal-arts field. They are not estimates for each exact six-digit field.

Career breadth cannot be measured reliably here

The structural federal crosswalk returns one occupation for both exact fields: Postsecondary Teachers, All Other.

That occupation had a May 2025 median wage of $77,640. Its projected employment growth is 1.8% from 2024 to 2034, with 13,500 average annual openings. Its typical entry credential is a doctoral or professional degree.

No occupation-level Claude-use observation was published for that occupation.

Coverage to keep in view

The awards chart contains observed first-major awards reported by colleges.

The historical series uses direct, one-to-one field mappings across the federal classification revision. Releases are revised through 2023–24; the 2024–25 and 2025–26 figures are provisional.