A new study from Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute (CERI) shows that graduates with a major in advertising will receive the lowest salary when they leave school next year at US$35,700 (about HK$28,000) a year.

CERI collected data from 4,700 employers who recruit on campuses across the US to project the starting salary for graduates.

Following advertising, the major expected to garner the next lowest pay was music/drama at $36,700 and public relations, with an average starting salary of $36,200.

Education majors were also at the bottom of the heap; special education teachers are expected to receive $38,400, followed by high school teachers at $38,100. Middle school teachers are set to make the least, earning $36,800.

History majors were also predicted to do poorly, with a starting salary of $37,800.

Philip Gardner, am economist and lead author of the survey and head of Michigan State’s career office said he left out English and philosophy majors because he was not able to collect enough data to represent them.

He pointed out that these graduates has the possibility of landing big time jobs with technology companies because Silicon Valley companies love to hire liberal arts majors for their creativity and original thinking.

“Some of tech’s most successful founders also didn’t study computers or engineering as undergrads or even in graduate school.  So a liberal arts degree is not necessarily a sentence to low-salary purgatory if you can be creative about your job search,” he told Forbes.

The 10 lowest paying college majors in the US in 2016 (in descending order):

10. Pre-K and kindergarten Education: $38,387

9. High school education: $38,055

8. History: $37,788

7. Foreign languages: $37,647

6. Elementary education: $37,480

5. Middle school education: $36,836

4. Music/Drama: $36,744

3. Psychology: $36,327

2. Public relations: $36,235

1. Advertising: $35,733

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