The country’s incoming college students have been exhorted, repeatedly, to major in something “useful,” rather than something intellectual. The idea is that there is a split between “useful” majors, which teach a specific skill (like marketing, computer science, or architecture) and “useless” majors, which are designed to impart, gasp, knowledge (think the humanities, natural sciences, etc). Major in something “useful,” the argument goes, and expect to be showered in riches. Those who major in something “useless,” meanwhile, can look forward to a future on the unemployment line. It’s not exactly a novel argument: The Daily Beast, Forbes, Yahoo News, USA Today, Newsweek (and who wouldn’t take career advice from Newsweek?), and President Obama have all made this philistine point.

Of course, the notion that the entire purpose of a college education is to secure a job is a perversion of the actual purpose of education – but nevermind that for now. Because it turns out that even accepting President Obama’s cramped vision of education, he and his friends at the Daily Beast are simply wrong on the merits. In fact, a lot of “useful” majors are useless on today’s job market – and a lot of people who majored in something “useless” are doing just fine.