Today, a new study of starting salaries for college graduates showed upward trends, except in one field. What was the lowest paid field for recent college grads? SOCIAL WORK. Read more in the Washington Post.

“Yet not every grad is a winner. The lowest-paid members of the class of 2007 will go into social work, where salaries are half those of some hot engineering or business careers. Social workers average $26,828, down 1.2 percent.”

What does this have to do with the tragedies at Virginia Tech? From my perspective, plenty. Campus counselers, many of whom are social workers, or earlier in Cho’s life, perhaps school social workers—all could have played a crucial role in Cho Seng-Hui’s mental health. Perhaps, meeting with a good social worker could have saved lives at Virginia Tech. But social workers are not well-respected, and we sure as hell know they aren’t well-paid. We don’t know if they were present or effective for Cho Seng-Hui.

A comment on my blog at Blogher:
“The words of Lucinda Roy
Comment by nelle2nelle posted Tue, 2007/04/17 – 3:15pm
The words of Lucinda Roy have haunted me since she was on NPR this afternoon.
She had Cho Seung-Hui as a student, and felt he was severely depressed and carried a lot of anger. Lucinda sought help from various sources, including the school and the police, but was rebuffed.
I simply cannot fathom how she must feel now.”

(I am an MSW student, and a candidate for an MPA).