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In the last year, some politicians and pundits have been questioning the value of a college degree, but data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau are the latest in a long series of statistics to demonstrate that college degrees have strong value in terms of lifetime earnings of recipients. The statistics focus on field of study and also document that certain majors on average result in much higher lifetime earnings than do other majors. In terms of the impact of bachelor's degrees, engineering degrees had the most payoff, while undergraduate majors in visual and performing arts, communications, education and psychology had the smallest payoffs. (A key caveat is that in some of those fields, graduate study is common and becomes the likely determinant of income.)