A purely Lithuanian question: which studies are not worthwhile?

 "Most four-year degrees pay off by paving the way for graduates to recoup the cost of their education relatively quickly, a new analysis finds. But that’s particularly true for some programs, while others may offer little economic advantage over a high school diploma.
The findings are part of a report on some 38,000 post-high school degree and certificate programs published this week by Third Way, a center-left public policy group. The report analyzed data collected for the federal Education Department’s “College Scorecard” tool to measure the “return on investment” offered by various higher education programs.
The report found that almost two-thirds of the 26,000 bachelor’s degree programs in the study enabled a majority of their graduates to make enough money to recover their costs in 10 years or less after graduation.
Bachelor’s degree programs, which typically take four years, are generally more expensive but are most likely to show at least some return on investment — meaning graduates earn enough to pay off their college costs reasonably quickly — for those who complete a degree, compared with two-year associate degrees or shorter certificate programs.
That’s good news for students who completed those four-year programs, said the report’s author, Michael Itzkowitz, senior fellow for higher education at Third Way and a former director of the College Scorecard.
Certain fields of study, however — typically those in higher-paying fields like engineering or health care — are substantially more likely to lead to a speedier economic boost than fields like the arts, religion or biology.
All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no return on investment, the report found, meaning most of their graduates are earning less than a typical high school graduate.

Lisa Sohmer, an independent college consultant near St. Petersburg, Fla., said such findings needed to be kept in perspective. While a college education is an investment, she said, it pays off in ways that aren’t strictly financial. Students are exposed to new ideas, she said, and learn about strengths and interests they didn’t know they had.
“It’s about exploring, learning, growing,” she said. “The goal is not to come out the way you went in.”"