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:
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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 |
