When it comes to earning potential, not all majors were created equal. Knowing this, shouldn’t it follow that not all majors are equal when it comes to debt?

While college degrees certainly boost an individual’s earning potential, not all of them boost it adequately enough to stay ahead of student loan debt. Student Loan Hero conducted a study on which majors shoot students into the worst spirals of debt. While there were many interesting findings, it’s important to start with the fact that those who obtained a college degree made an average of 71% more than those who didn’t. So while picking any major will likely increase your earning potential, it won’t necessarily improve your financial situation in the earlier years of your life if you have to take on debt.

The 14 majors with the highest earnings-to-debt ratios can all be connected to STEM subjects, according to the study. While some fields such as law have high earning potentials, higher educational attainment requirements such as law school or graduate schools push the earnings-to-debt ratio down. The top five best majors for their earnings-to-debt ratio were physical sciences, computer science, technology, engineering, and math, respectively.

The majors with the lowest earnings-to-debt ratios require additional education, for the most part. Law, pharmacy, and education all scored quite low for two reasons. The first reason is that these studies require more than a bachelor’s degree, and their entry-level pay isn’t high enough to push the earnings-to-debt ratio up. The most useful finding was perhaps the fact that STEM fields pay your debt off the most, and the fastest, of all post-secondary studies.