Economy down, salaries up?

Seeing as I (and a whole bunch of other people I know) just graduated from college, it's always interesting to know what we'd be making in the real world, should we choose to go out into the real world rather than going straight to graduate school, as I am doing.

My Mom sent me yet another MSN article (I think we're at two-three a day, mostly about finances...I take it as a hint). I found this one super interesting.

Apparently, if I were to go out into the world with my liberal arts degree and try to make a living, my starting salary would be around $33,258.

If I decided to use my journalism degree, my salary would be a little less, at $32,250.

If had decided at the beginning of my college career that I hated words and wanted to work in the medium of computers, my salary would be somewhere near $56,921.

The moral of the story? If you like words, you're destined to stay right around the Arizona poverty line in your post-graduation years. Yay, right? Eh, nothing new.

The main point of the article, however, was that salaries for new college grads are higher this year than last year. That's a good thing.

It's just pretty weird because the economy is tanking like crazy. Wild.