By YOUNG MONEY Staff
15 September 2011

Educational resource The Best Degrees recently released an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data that attempts to highlight the best degrees in terms of job potential.

The analysis brought together data on job opportunities from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, wage information and stated degree requirements, seeking to account for both the potential to earn higher incomes and more basically the ability to find a position at all.

Unsurprisingly, the half of the top ten and four of the top five degrees represented a graduate education, with one - Ph.D. in Computer Science at number 2 - calling for many years beyond the standard four-year college education. Top overall was an M.B.A. in Technology Management, reflecting the growing need for business education in the technology market and vice versa.

Technology degrees, from computer science to databases to software engineering, accounted for seven of the top 10. The other three degrees came from education administration, geoscience and nursing.

Computerworld reports that many technology firms are in a hiring frenzy, even as numbers for the industry declined due to the strike at Verizon.