In my experience you are correct about STEM. I live in flyover country, most STEM people I know pay off student debt in around 3-5 years no issues. Only a sample size of ~35, but low cost of living and high wages in engineering goes a long way. Also fly over country tends to have good cheap state schools, so not sure how well my experience translates to the coasts

STEM isn't really STEM when it comes to money though, it's more like parts of TE or graduating from a 'good' school where there's a lot of recruiting. A B.S. in Math from ENMU isn't really any better placed for >50K lob than their BFA friends.

Computer related majors (software engineering, IT, networking, etc.) and most engineering generally pay off as long as you don't end up hating the work.

Hard science majors (especially biology) don't have it so well, unless they go to med school or pharmacy school.

Math is a pretty mixed bag, some math majors get well paying jobs as actuaries, statisticians, modeling, etc, but many (and all I know personally) end up in low paying jobs that you don't need a degree for.