The data college students have always needed about majors, jobs, loans, and where the math actually works. Sixteen tools. Real data, every relevant source. No advice — just what's true. You make the call.
Either way, sixteen interactive tools — built on the most comprehensive data available — to look at what graduates of any major actually earn, what jobs they take, and what cities make the math work. Pathfinder doesn't give advice. It gives the numbers. Your student decides what to do with them.
Barista. Uber driver. Receptionist. Mortgage broker. Nanny. Plenty of those people are happy. But $250,000 of opportunity cost is a hard number to feel good about if your job didn't need any of it.
The data on which majors lead where, in which cities, against which loan payments — it exists. Pathfinder is what happens when you put it in front of the people making the decision.
Barista. Uber driver. Receptionist. Mortgage broker. Nanny. Plenty of those people are happy. But $250,000 of opportunity cost is a hard number to swallow if the degree didn't open a door the job actually required.
The data on what majors lead where, in which cities, against which loan payments — it's all there. Pathfinder is what happens when somebody finally puts it in front of the student making the decision.
The data exists. It's been sitting in federal agencies, state databases, college reports, academic studies, and think-tank research for years. Nobody put it together for the people who needed it most. So we did. Sixteen modules. Five categories. Ask any question. Each tool answers a specific question with the most comprehensive data available — federal, state, institutional, academic, and think-tank sources, all in one place. Not advice. Not opinions. Not the brochure version. Your student works through the ones that matter to them, in any order. Colleges teach. Career centers help with resumes. Pathfinder is the part that's been missing.
Salary outcomes, top job titles, and career trajectory for the major they pick.
Early vs. mid-career salary across 150+ majors. Where theirs ranks.
How earnings evolve over a career, by field. Some start slow and climb fast. Some don't climb.
The actual jobs grads land, ranked by frequency. Not the brochure version.
How many grads end up in jobs that don't require a degree, and what that costs them.
The full job landscape for any major. Filter by salary, industry, geography.
Where specific jobs cluster geographically. Some industries live in three cities.
4 in 10 college grads are underemployed. How a major actually compares.
Which jobs face displacement risk. Which are likely to grow. The data, not the panic.
How long before the degree pays for itself, against expected salary.
Total cost: tuition, housing, aid, and what's owed at graduation.
Whether the second degree pays off. The cost, the bump, the real return.
A $70K offer in Texas is not a $70K offer in California. Take-home is what matters.
Which cities offer the right combination of jobs, salary, and affordability.
Full breakdown across 45 metros: housing, food, transport, healthcare, taxes.
How the same job pays differently across states and metros.
Plug in college cost, major, target jobs, and 2–5 cities. See the five-year financial picture side by side, with wages adjusted for each city using live BLS data.
The other 16 tools answer questions. The Path turns the answers into a picture.
You ask:
"What does a Communications major earn?"
Google gives you a national median. BLS has the salary range for "Public Relations Specialists." A few sites estimate by school. None of them tell you:
The data exists. It's scattered across federal agencies (BLS, College Scorecard, NCES), state labor and education departments, college-reported figures, academic research, and think-tank studies. Pulling it together is a Saturday afternoon and a spreadsheet.
We've already done the spreadsheet. Sixteen times.
A college degree is the second-largest purchase most families ever make. The first is a house. Nobody buys a house without a contractor's report. This is the contractor's report. You hired tutors. You toured campuses. You read the financial aid letters twice. This is the last $49 in that sequence — the one that tells you whether the rest of it is going to land. Not because it gives advice. Because it gives data.
You hope they have a plan. You think they have a plan. You assume the college is helping them build one, or that the career center has all this information, or that orientation week covered it.
None of that is true. Colleges aren't in the outcomes business — they're in the education business, which is a real and good thing, but it isn't the same thing. Career centers help with resumes; they don't have salary data by major and city or model loan break-even against starting wages. Orientation week covered the meal plan.
So your student is making a six-figure decision with the information they could find on a Tuesday night Googling. And half of college graduates end up in jobs that didn't require the degree they paid for. The risk isn't that they fail. The risk is that they spend $250,000 to do something they could have done at 18.
Pathfinder is what comes between you nagging and them figuring it out. Sixteen interactive tools, built on every relevant data source — federal, state, institutional, academic, and think-tank — that let your student look at the actual numbers behind their major, their target jobs, their loans, and the cities where the math could work. No advisor required. No conversation with you required. Just the data, in a tool they can use on a Tuesday night when they're already at their laptop.
You're not buying advice for them. You're buying the inputs to a decision that's theirs to make.
The numbers most students figure out too late — available right now, while you still have time to do something with them.
Questions? Contact us · Privacy Policy
You've already chosen the school. You've already paid the deposit. This is the data that makes the rest of those decisions theirs to make with their eyes open.
Questions? Contact us · Privacy Policy