Prime number: College students double down

Nick Iluzada

Major news out of US colleges: More students than ever are opting for a second major. Now that learning to code doesn’t guarantee a high-paying job, college students are double-majoring to help their resumes stand out. Based on a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data, the Washington Post reports: Nationwide, ~12% of graduates earned more than one credential in the 2023–2024 school year, compared to just 6% a decade earlier. It’s happening at elite universities, private colleges, and massive state schools. Between 2014 and 2024, double majors spiked 334% at Harvard, 317% at Belmont University, and 169% at the University of California, San Diego. And with the prospect of a super-tight job market for new grads looming, many appear as strategic about what subjects to study as they are about how to fit in three different parties on opposite ends of campus in the same night. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where double majors are up 25% over the decade, almost 60% of computer science students who take on a second major pick data science—a field where the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to see a growth of high-salaried jobs.