Study: Las Vegas’ hospitality industry scores low for earnings prospects

Southern Nevada's bread-and-butter industry gets relatively low marks for its earnings prospects in a sweeping national study of college majors and their salary potential.

Researchers at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce reported last week that college graduates with four-year degrees in hospitality management earn less per year than grads from any other business-related major.

But local experts say anecdotal evidence points to higher-than-average earnings among hospitality-management majors graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the industry offers considerably better opportunities for advancement than many other sectors.

Start with those earnings numbers: Hospitality managers take home a median annual salary of $50,000, compared with $60,000 for all business majors, the Georgetown study said. The highest-paid business majors studied business economics. They make a median of $75,000 a year.

Georgetown's research is based on previously unreported Census data that definitively links college majors to career earnings. Earlier studies have looked at salaries immediately after graduation, but the new report covers earnings across a person's working life and is based on a much larger survey.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas doesn't track the median salary for hospitality majors working strictly in the local resort sector, partly because many of its students will take jobs in other major markets around the country and the world, said Bobbie Barnes, director of the Bob Boughner Career Services Center at UNLV's William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

But Barnes did note that hospitality-management students right out of UNLV typically start at $36,000 to $45,000 a year, so Georgetown's median for all managers regardless of career phase sounded a little low, she said. Subpar salaries among hotel and restaurant managers in smaller markets could drag down the average, she said.

Don't expect that median salary to put off prospective hospitality-management majors, though: For the current crop of students, pay isn't their biggest concern, Barnes said.

"Money is one thing, but it's not the deciding factor. Students in this generation really want a job they enjoy," Barnes said. "They want opportunities to work with different people and to travel. Hotels are mini-cities. There's so much opportunity in these properties. We see people start in one area and move to a completely different facet of an organization. They could start at the front desk and move into food and beverage. They can work in quick-service restaurants or in fine dining, or plan conventions and weddings."

A sizable number of management majors at Harrah College come to the program after working in local hotels, Barnes added.

"They may start out as a line employee, and they see what great company Caesars is, or MGM Resorts, or Station," she said. "They already love what they're doing, and they want a degree for the opportunity to advance. They love working with people, and they've made a conscious decision to work in hospitality. They enjoy creating a guest experience."

Georgetown's study found that hospitality management majors are also least likely among business majors to obtain a graduate degree. Twelve percent will complete advanced studies, compared with 21 percent among all business majors and 30 percent among business-economics majors.

Other majors with historically strong demand for graduates in Nevada fared better than the rest of their field.

Mining and mineral engineering majors earn a median of $80,000 a year, above the $75,000 that all engineering majors earn, and well above the $55,000 that the lowest-paid engineers (biological engineers) make. Civil engineers, who design bridges, roads and other public-works projects, earn a median of $78,000.

Among mining and mineral engineers, 37 percent will obtain a graduate degree, which is even with the 37 percent average among all engineering majors. Thirty-five percent of civil engineers will get graduate degrees.

The Georgetown report also noted that college graduates who majored in English and other arts and humanities majors earned far less than their scientifically oriented peers.

Some defenders of the humanities have said that their students are endowed with "critical thinking" and other skills that could enable them to catch up to other students in earnings.

Turns out, on average, they were wrong.

Over a lifetime, the earnings of workers who have majored in engineering, computer science or business are as much as 50 percent higher than the earnings of those who major in the humanities, the arts, education and psychology, according to the analysis.

The report comes as the recession and escalating college costs have renewed questions about the value of a college degree. Over the past two decades, the average amount of debt a student takes on has roughly doubled in real terms, leading more parents and students to focus on the financial returns of their college investments.

According to the study, the median annual earnings for someone with a bachelor's degree in engineering was $75,000. The median wage was $47,000 in the humanities, $44,000 in the arts and $42,000 in education or in psychology.

The individual major with the highest median earnings was petroleum engineering, at $120,000, followed by pharmaceutical sciences at $105,000, and math and computer sciences at $98,000.

The lowest earnings median was for those majoring in counseling or psychology, at $29,000, and early childhood education at $36,000. Workers with a bachelor's degree in English language and literature have median earnings of $48,000.

In general, the study found that a college degree is a good investment. It showed that a worker with a bachelor's degree can expect to make 84 percent more in a lifetime than a colleague who has only a high school diploma.

The Washington Post and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at
jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 380-4512.