Long-Term Prospects

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Job Satisfaction

General quality of life statement

People with rhetoric degrees aren't exactly sitting atop of the job satisfaction pyramid, basking in the sunlight and glory of lives spent loving their nine-to-five jobs. So, there's that.

Your focus within the rhetoric major greatly affects your job prospects, however. Linguists are a lot happier with those big, fancy Google jobs than philosophy majors are with their complete lack of jobs. Ba-dum-tsh.

While we swear there's more to life than money—cuddling with kittens, binge-watching My So-Called Life, and eating ice cream immediately come to mind—you will need some to survive. And the bummer for rhetoric graduates is that the dollars won't exactly come pouring in.

This is decidedly not a make-it-rain kind of career path. Unless one-dollar bills are your thing, in which case, you'll be one happy camper.

One thing rhetoric does exceptionally well is to set you up for grad school. If you're in love with being in school, then, this is the major for you. And with that extra post-graduate degree—especially a Ph.D. or J.D.—your earning capacity skyrockets.

Bonus: you'll be, like, so totally prepared to negotiate your salary at any job you might end up in. Your boss won't know what's hit them by the time you finish explaining why you clearly deserve a raise. Even if that raise is from $32,000 to $35,000. Natch.

25th Percentile Salary

Median Salary

75th Percentile Salary

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