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Psychology, business, nursing top college majors among state government workers

preese@sacbee.com

Published Wednesday, Apr. 11, 2012


State government workers are much more likely to hold a college degree than other Californians.

About 40 percent of state government workers have a bachelor's degree, compared to 30 percent of the statewide adult population, census figures show. And that excludes tens of thousands of college professors, who invariably hold degrees.

State workers often major in different subjects than the rest of the state's college graduates. They were more likely to major in psychology, civil engineering, biology, sociology, history and social work. They were less likely to major in drama, computer science, business, finance, communications, electrical engineering and film.

This chart shows the 25 most popular majors among California state workers with bachelor's degrees.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample

Notes: Excludes college professors, administrators and teachers, nearly all of whom have degrees. This was done primarily to keep the state's tens of thousands of college professors from skewing the data. Also excludes in-home supportive service workers, who often list the state as their employer. Data drawn from a statistical sample and therefore subject to sampling error. For example, the margin of error for the proportion of state worker college grads who were psychology majors is about half a percentage point.

Read more articles by Phillip Reese

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