Aerospace Engineering is Literally Rocket Science

Payscale, a site that collects data on salaries for different professions, conducted a study over the last year and here are the results. Note that the numbers are from 1.2 million users of PayScale's site who self-reported their salaries and educational credentials in a PayScale survey over the last year. From Yahoo Finance:


Some highlights from the data:

• Dartmouth College has the highest median mid-career salary (defined as salary at 10 years or greater after graduation).
• Loma Linda University has the highest median starting salary (defined as salaries within five years of graduation), a function of their strong programs in nursing, dental and allied health.
• In general, engineering schools produced the best starting salaries, and represented eight out of the top 10 schools in starting salary. On the other hand, Ivy League Schools are the best bet for mid-career pay, with five out of the top 10.
• Majors matter. Quantitative-oriented degrees -- like engineering, science, mathematics and economics -- filled most of the top 20 slots in both highest starting median salaries and highest mid-career median salaries.

• Economics majors have the fifth highest mid-career median salary, the 17th-highest starting salary, and the highest salary at the 90th percentile, mid-career mark.
• Some of the major/department numbers may fool you, though.

For example, who would have thought that philosophy majors in mid-career would earn more than information technology majors in mid-career? This is probably because students who major in philosophy are more likely to go to elite schools, whereas students who major in I.T. are likely to go to pre-professional-type schools that don't even offer philosophy as a major, Mr. Lee says. So it's not really the choice of major that's making the difference -- it's the school.

"A student's choice of major has a huge impact mid-career, enormous," says Mr. Lee. "But you generally don't see people majoring in philosophy" -- or other "soft" majors, he says -- "except in top schools."

That said, here are the bottom 10 majors by mid-career salary:

Read the article at Yahoo finance.
And glance at the full stats list here.

Preview a portion of the list:

School Name	School Type	Starting Median Salary	Mid-Career Median Salary
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Dartmouth College	Ivy League	$58,200	$129,000
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Engineering	$71,100	$126,000
Harvard University	Ivy League	$60,000	$126,000
Harvey Mudd College	Engineering	$71,000	$125,000
Stanford University	Engineering	$67,500	$124,000
Princeton University	Ivy League	$65,000	$124,000
Colgate University	Liberal Arts	$51,900	$122,000
University of Notre Dame	Private	$55,300	$121,000
Yale University	Ivy League	$56,000	$120,000
University of Pennsylvania	Ivy League	$60,400	$118,000
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)	Engineering	$62,500	$116,000
Duke University	Private	$56,800	$116,000
Bucknell University	Engineering	$56,100	$116,000
Bucknell University	Liberal Arts	$56,100	$116,000
California Institute of Technology (CIT)	Engineering	$69,700	$115,000
Polytechnic University of New York, Brooklyn	Engineering	$62,700	$114,000
Lehigh University	Engineering	$57,400	$114,000
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)	Engineering	$65,300	$113,000
University of California, Berkeley	Engineering	$57,100	$112,000
University of California, Berkeley	State Schools	$57,100	$112,000
Santa Clara University	Private	$58,000	$111,000
Georgetown University	Private	$57,000	$111,000
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)	Engineering	$61,100	$110,000
Swarthmore College	Liberal Arts	$55,900	$110,000
Colorado School of Mines	Engineering	$60,000	$109,000
Colorado School of Mines	State Schools	$60,000	$109,000
Manhattan College	Private	$56,100	$109,000
Amherst College	Liberal Arts	$54,900	$109,000
Haverford College	Liberal Arts	$46,200	$109,000
Brown University	Ivy League	$52,300	$107,000
University Of Chicago	Private	$51,700	$107,000
Cornell University	Engineering	$58,000	$106,000
Cornell University	Ivy League	$58,000	$106,000
Lafayette College	Liberal Arts	$53,700	$106,000
Bowdoin College	Liberal Arts	$52,700	$106,000
Georgia Institute of Technology	Engineering	$58,900	$105,000
Georgia Institute of Technology	State Schools	$58,900	$105,000
Rice University	Private	$57,900	$105,000
Tufts University	Private	$48,200	$105,000
Dickinson College	Liberal Arts	$44,000	$105,000
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)	Engineering	$55,100	$104,000
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)	State Schools	$55,100	$104,000
Washington and Lee University	Liberal Arts	$51,800	$104,000
College of the Holy Cross	Liberal Arts	$46,600	$104,000
Carleton College	Liberal Arts	$45,400	$104,000
University of Southern California (USC)	Private	$54,600	$103,000
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)	State Schools	$50,700	$103,000
Williams College	Liberal Arts	$49,400	$103,000
Davidson College	Liberal Arts	$45,800	$103,000
Cooper Union	Engineering	$61,100	$102,000
Claremont McKenna College	Liberal Arts	$58,300	$102,000
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly)	Engineering	$57,000	$102,000
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly)	State Schools	$57,000	$102,000
Fairfield University	Private	$50,400	$102,000
Stevens Institute of Technology	Engineering	$59,400	$101,000
Boston College	Private	$51,500	$101,000
Bates College	Liberal Arts	$46,400	$101,000
Fordham University	Private	$46,100	$101,000
Columbia University	Ivy League	$57,300	$100,000
Vanderbilt University	Private	$51,800	$100,000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	Engineering	$53,900	$99,700
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	Party Schools	$53,900	$99,700
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)	State Schools	$53,900	$99,700
Middlebury College	Liberal Arts	$45,000	$99,200
Villanova University	Engineering	$56,700	$99,000
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT)	Engineering	$61,100	$98,800
Tulane University	Party Schools	$47,800	$98,800
Clarkson University	Engineering	$55,400	$98,500
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)	Party Schools	$49,700	$98,400
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)	State Schools	$49,700	$98,400
Drexel University	Private	$54,100	$98,000
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)	Engineering	$57,400	$97,600
Case Western Reserve University	Engineering	$56,500	$97,500
Pomona College	Liberal Arts	$50,500	$97,500
Iona College	Private	$47,200	$97,500
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)	Engineering	$52,900	$97,400
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)	State Schools	$52,900	$97,400
George Washington University (GWU)	Private	$48,200	$97,300
Loyola College in Maryland	Liberal Arts	$45,000	$97,300
University of Virginia (UVA)	State Schools	$52,200	$97,200
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)	State Schools	$51,600	$97,000
Southern Methodist University (SMU)	Private	$48,600	$96,900
Connecticut College	Liberal Arts	$42,500	$96,800
San Jose State University (SJSU)	State Schools	$53,400	$96,300
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech)	Engineering	$51,700	$96,300
Miami University	State Schools	$47,100	$96,100
Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut)	Liberal Arts	$46,300	$95,700
Occidental College	Liberal Arts	$45,300	$95,700
University of California, Davis (UC Davis)	State Schools	$51,200	$95,400
St. John's University, New York	Private	$50,000	$95,400
Loyola Marymount University	Private	$43,500	$95,400
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T)	Engineering	$57,300	$95,200
Texas A&M University	State Schools	$51,100	$95,000
Johns Hopkins University	Engineering	$57,800	$94,900
New York University (NYU)	Private	$49,600	$94,900
Kettering University	Engineering	$57,900	$94,500
Emory University	Private	$50,600	$94,300
University of Colorado - Boulder (UCB)	Party Schools	$47,100	$94,300