Almost any degree yields positive ROI

[Hibush]

Humanities students who get high paying jobs make out the same as the other majors in the same jobs.

Maybe this is the point you are already making, but this is a classic example of selection bias + restriction of range in statistics. 

There is also a third variable problem, as students from higher SES families are more likely to choose humanities majors, and are much more likely to benefit from the types of social networks that help them get high paying jobs in fields that don't require a particular degree. I would like to see outcomes stratified by family SES (surely someone has looked at this?).

For the purpose of students choosing (or parents encouraging) among majors, the marginal utility of one major over another is probably highly individual, based on things like strength of social network. Using population data in making that choice is not going to be very predictive. But that is what people are using, and what providers of faux insight are sending out. Especially to those who don't have good independent context, like first-gen undergrads.

It is useful to know the population structure, if you will, of the workplace. That gives a sense of what and individual might want to aim for.

It would be honest of departments that claim their major provided some kind of employment boost, to have sufficiently granular information that it individual students can apply it. But showing students the mechanisms whereby graduates go into the major's main career trajectories is even more helpful. To get data, it seems worthwhile to characterize incoming student across several dimensions, then see how they fare in school and career. To what extent are initial characteristics associated with common career outcomes (better or worse)? Are there common mechanisms associated with some of the more common initial to final states? That insight would really help advising, recruiting and perhaps curriculum development. In a focused major, it might only take several hundred students to start getting a picture.

[Wahoo Redux]

I cannot vouch for this particular website, but detailed specifics regarding career outcomes is readily available for parents and students with Internet access:

https://www.bestcolleges.com/careers/humanities-and-social-sciences/english/

I would trust the Occupational Handbook:

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/field-of-degree/english/english-field-of-degree.htm

There are a great many others.  A lot of a graduate's success in any of these fields seems to be predicated upon the reputation of the school they attended.  Stanford, for instance, has a list of its English major graduates and their career paths, which are, of course, rather posh.   

[jimbogumbo]

dismalist: I really don't care how much is due to signaling. You seem to me to always be arguing for a "better" world. I'm just talking about best strategies under current rules and conditions.

Almost all people are like that, Jimbo, and for good evolutionary reason. Looking exclusively at oneself, it is indeed best to only consider "the best strategies under current rules and conditions". Heartily agreed. It's efficient in the short run. But there's a difference between optimally adapting to existing institutions and designing optimal institutions.

The difficulty arises when individual rationality is counter to group rationality. To follow the logic of signalling, sticking with higher ed, everybody agrees higher ed is financially beneficial. OK, so let's do more. Everybody goes to higher ed, perhaps because the government pays for it. Everybody has now stood up at the concert. To get ahead of the crowd, get a Master's. Then everybody gets a Masters. Now to get ahead you need a PhD, or, well, doctor of something. Then everybody gets a PhD, or doctor of something. At the end of all this, we all have PhD's and produce very little because our working lives are now so short. Poverty beckons. I'm sure higher degrees can easily be instituted. There's the Habilitation in many European and non-English-speaking countries already, from the 17th century, flowering from the 19th.

There are of course beneficiaries to this process -- us, at least for a while.

That's why it's important to think about these things.

dismalist: agreed it is important, and a long term societal goal/aspiration. I simply wasn't writing in that context. My junior in hs granddaughter is hardly in any position to shape policy. My advice to her (purely looking at the best outcome for her) is to get a degree.

[dismalist]

dismalist: I really don't care how much is due to signaling. You seem to me to always be arguing for a "better" world. I'm just talking about best strategies under current rules and conditions.

Almost all people are like that, Jimbo, and for good evolutionary reason. Looking exclusively at oneself, it is indeed best to only consider "the best strategies under current rules and conditions". Heartily agreed. It's efficient in the short run. But there's a difference between optimally adapting to existing institutions and designing optimal institutions.

The difficulty arises when individual rationality is counter to group rationality. To follow the logic of signalling, sticking with higher ed, everybody agrees higher ed is financially beneficial. OK, so let's do more. Everybody goes to higher ed, perhaps because the government pays for it. Everybody has now stood up at the concert. To get ahead of the crowd, get a Master's. Then everybody gets a Masters. Now to get ahead you need a PhD, or, well, doctor of something. Then everybody gets a PhD, or doctor of something. At the end of all this, we all have PhD's and produce very little because our working lives are now so short. Poverty beckons. I'm sure higher degrees can easily be instituted. There's the Habilitation in many European and non-English-speaking countries already, from the 17th century, flowering from the 19th.

There are of course beneficiaries to this process -- us, at least for a while.

That's why it's important to think about these things.

dismalist: agreed it is important, and a long term societal goal/aspiration. I simply wasn't writing in that context. My junior in hs granddaughter is hardly in any position to shape policy. My advice to her (purely looking at the best outcome for her) is to get a degree.

Of course your progeny must decide what's in their own best interests!

But the difficulty exists even when voting on policy. Why should anyone vote against a bad policy that benefits you, whereas a good policy would benefit you more, unless almost everybody votes against it?

It's all very difficult.