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(Money Magazine) -- When Ed Koc's daughter announced that she was thinking of majoring in music, he gulped.

As head of research for the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), Koc knew her salary prospects weren't good. Performing arts majors earn $35,000 a year, on average, right out of school - if they're lucky enough to find work.

Koc didn't want to discourage the talented oboe and flute player, but he urged her to consider other options. When she expressed an interest in medicine, they arrived at a compromise: major in music but take premed classes too.

In these tough economic times, you, like Koc, might be worried about investing $30,000 a year in a child's college career only to have to support a highly educated waitress or busboy later on.

Certainly there's no value in pushing a kid into a course of study just because it's rife with job openings or offers higher salaries. "Students perform much better when they're in a major of their choosing," says Cal Newport, author of "How to Become a Straight-A Student."

The trick is to assist your child in finding a middle ground between passion and practicality.

The jobs that are most in demand tend to be in technical fields requiring a specific degree, such as health care, engineering or computer science. (Chemical-engineering grads are almost guaranteed a job, and a lucrative one at that. Oil companies offered an average starting salary of $75,000 this year, reports NACE - nearly double what liberal arts students could expect.)

But a study published in Economics of Education Review in 2007 found that across all fields, new grads who were in jobs matching their majors earned more than those who weren't.

Lesson: Pick the job path, then the course of study. Have your kid visit the campus career center, which likely offers resources to aid students in identifying work interests.

Once Junior narrows his options, make sure he has a realistic view of his future. Print out a hiring forecast for his desired field or fields at the Bureau of Labor Statistics' site and go over it with him.

Also, take him to payscale.com and salary.com to research pay. Talk with your child about what the various numbers mean: If an apartment costs x and a car y, would the salary support the lifestyle he'd like? If not, is he willing to scale back his expectations a bit?

If your child's top choice is in an area with fewer jobs or low pay, you may want to encourage her to pursue a dual degree or to add a concentration in a more promising field. That way she - like Koc's daughter - will have a fallback option.

Give kids an advantage by having them work in the field before graduation. In a recent Monster.com survey of employers, relevant work experience was the most-often- cited top criterion for hiring.

For internship info, send your kid to the career office or internjobs.com. Your child will have more luck getting the first gig if she starts small - the local TV station vs. MTV.