Career prospects, and especially expected lifetime salaries, can be a strong motivator or deterrent in pursuing certain college degrees.

Not all degrees guarantee higher lifetime earnings compared to entering the workforce after high school without a degree - as some degrees may end up costing more than their financial benefits.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows the average return on investment of a degree in the U.S., based on analysis from CollegeNPV of data from the U.S. Department of Education and Bureau of Labor Statistics

Engineering, computer and information sciences, mathematics, and engineering technician degrees are the most valuable degrees in the U.S. when looking at expected lifetime income minus debt compared to working right after high school without a degree.

As for specific programs, Harvard University’s computer science degree ranks first for ROI, according to CollegeNPV.

Graduates of this program can expect an ROI of over $4 million in their lifetime, with $256,539 in median income and $14,000 in median debt.

On the other end, humanities degrees like visual and performing arts, theology, and English are among the least valuable degrees when looking at lifetime earnings.

With a negative ROI of about $39,000, English language programs have also experienced the greatest decrease in graduates, with 32% fewer students completing these programs compared to 10 years prior.