Students preparing to enter college might want to re-think that gender studies degree if they want to earn a good living after graduation.

Lauren Weber of the Wall Street Journal reports.

And The Highest-Paid College Majors Are…

Christine Evans, 22, has wanted to be an engineer since before she can remember.

Her father, a mechanical engineer, encouraged her to attack school projects with a systematic mindset from an early age, and she eventually followed in his footsteps, studying mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama.

The choice has paid off. After graduating this weekend, she’ll take a few months off before starting a job at the development company of Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM +0.88% in Houston, Tex., where she’ll be earning nearly six figures, she said.

While college majors may seem irrelevant to employers who mainly want to hire young people who can think critically and communicate well, that doesn’t mean all majors are created equal.

Engineering grads of 2013, like Evans, will still earn far higher salaries, on average, than the typical new college graduate, according to the latest salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which releases reports on the earnings of new graduates three times a year.

The average starting salary for a member of the class of 2013 is $44,928, up 5.3% from the previous year, driven by big gains in fields such as health sciences and business.

But these figures are relevant only for those grads lucky enough to find a job during college-recruiting season or soon after. A recent report from the Department of Labor looked at data from 2007 to 2011 and found that 13.5% of bachelor’s degree holders were unemployed a few months after their 2011 graduations (Bleak, but far better than the 17.6% unemployment rate among that group in 2009).

Engineers took seven of the top ten spots in NACE’s April survey, with petroleum engineers–a category added this year–earning the most, with average starting salaries of $93,500.