Study reveals the college majors that new grads regret the most

MoneyWatch Here are the college majors that new grads regret the most, according to a recent survey .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-moneywatch.jpg'); } By Mary Cunningham Mary Cunningham Reporter, MoneyWatch Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. Read Full Bio Mary Cunningham April 24, 2026 / 11:49 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google A college degree is often seen as a way to get a leg up in the labor market, which has recently been notoriously challenging for early-career workers. But as new grads begin their job searches, many say they wish they had chosen a different field of study.Roughly one in five recent grads regret their major, according to a recent report from ZipRecruiter, which surveyed 1,500 graduates from the class of 2025, and another 1,500 students set to graduate this spring. Liberal arts majors were most likely to regret the area they chose to focus their studies, with many wishing they had pursued a scientific or quantitative field, according to the job site.The fields with the highest share of regret among recent grads are political science, international relations, or public policy, with 46.3% of those majors expressing dissatisfaction with their choice, ZipRecruiter found. That's followed by communications, media studies or public relations majors, 39.2% of whom said they rue their decision.To be sure, it's not only liberal arts grads who have second thoughts about their majors, with one-third of physical sciences majors — people who majored in physics, chemistry or earth sciences — expressing doubts, the analysis found. Regret may be more acute for young grads due to the stress of securing a career foothold, with research from the Federal Reserve finding that middle-aged workers are generally more positive about the value of their college degrees than younge...