<p>Is it true that certain majors and careers such as engineering have a cap in earnings which is usually reported to be 125k mid career on salary on sites like payscale, while careers in accounting , finance have way higher earning potential in the long term (5-10 years). My question is do majors like engineering have the high starting salary while business majors have the long term earnings and have the ability to out earn the engineers in the long term (5-10 years)? Or is there something I am missing about how salary works in the engineering field? So is engineering a more solid field in terms of earnings while business is more flexible?</p>
<p>On average, engineers have a higher starting salary. Potential growth depends on the individual</p>
<p>In the long term an engineer can be initially paid higher than a business major, get an MBA at night classes being paid for their company, and then move on to management/business jobs.</p>
<p>But the engineer would still have to switch into business to have the higher earnings potential.</p>
<p>Yea what maxellis said is my point about how the actual field of engineering is not as well paid as business but engineers are able to move into the business field and that is the way they would increase their income potential. I just want to confirm this because of my initial suspicion of engineering having earnings within a certain relatively small range (50k start to top off at 120k) compared to business field earnings which a very widely.</p>
<p>In-n-out (west coast phenomenon if you don’t know) is very good long-term. Low-ranking employees who stay with them long eventually go into middle management and make over $100k easily.</p>
<p>Engineers can do many things. Many head into sales, for example, to make more than rank and file engineers. Some start companies.</p>
<p>A rank and file guy in finance is not an investment banker making hundreds of thousands but some finance guys are making millions.</p>
<p>But yes, engineering salaries, because they start relatively high, can be misleading. People look at engineering, pharmacy and nursing and see dollar signs, but the average job in these careers does not have much salary growth when compared to others.</p>
<p>^^^^
Excellent point Redroses
Salary growth in engineering is very slow and limited and you are right that the high starting salaries in nursing and engineering and especially pharmacy mislead many people because many of them do not look at long term earning potential.</p>
<p>I think if you consider the salary you can earn with an engineering career as not enough to live comfortably on, then you probably grew up more comfortably than about 90% of the country.</p>
<p>^^Yea, I just don’t understand the idea of a “good salary” people have on this board.</p>
<p>Consider that an average household (mother, father, 2 children) brings in 35-40k per year, TOGETHER…and an engineer starts out making 65-75k and people think that it’s not good long term, what the heck do these people’s parents do?</p>
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Well, most of the kids here already have their own “korporashun” so…</p>
<p>In many large corporations (Boeing, IBM,etc.) they have set up two career tracks for higher level engineers, so that they can have continued $ growth. At a certain level you can decide if you want to be promoted into management or stay in the technical arena. If you decide to stay technical you can become a “scientist” or “fellow”; which pay at the director level of salaries and are accorded huge respect by their peers.</p>
<p>Ah, but most of the kids here have stars in their eyes and want to be multimillionaire bankers.</p>
<p>Yea if CC salary expectations were realistic making 100k would be in the poverty level.</p>
<p>[Engineering</a> PhD switching to MBA Finance | WallStreetOasis.com](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/engineering-phd-switching-to-mba-finance]Engineering”>MBA after PhD in Mechanical Engineering | Wall Street Oasis)</p>
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<p>I think we as a society think that money cures all problems and that money is power. Both of those are not necessarily true, and in fact, probably wrong in most cases.</p>
<p>The truth is that if you’re the “average/median” in ANY field, you will probably not become a multi-millionaire. The average entrepreneur fails. The average ibanker doesn’t make it past year 2. The average engineer… You get the picture.</p>
<p>Personally, I value power way more than I value money. With power, you can make money. Having a lot of money does not necessarily give you a lot of power.</p>
<p>As for careers with the best long term earning potential, you have to account for two things: median pay and stability/security of career field. I don’t think there’s anyone in here that will dispute that medicine probably takes the honors for that trophy.</p>
<p>My husband is an engineer for an automotive manufacturer. He has an MBA, but he has decided that he far prefers being an engineer to being a manager. He is a test engineer, and he is extremely well thought of by his employer. He makes a very comfortable salary. However, he does not make as much as some of his engineer friends who went into management. A few of his friends were lucky enough to be in areas that had a dual track for engineers … their jobs allowed them to move up to a level normally reserved for managers while still engineers. With the recent problems in the auto industry, though, all but one of those friends has been “demoted” a level (losing the company car perk). </p>
<p>I think it’s possible that there may be more room for long term salary growth in “business” simply because “business” encompasses management in any field one can imagine. The president of a company might have begun as a engineer, but he is considered to be in the field of “business” by the time he becomes president.</p>
<p>plscatamacchia
I do believe that it is not enough to live on, but I think your definition of living comfortably is different from mine and other people on CC. But please do elaborate on what your definition of living comfortably is.</p>
<p>Are you KIDDING? Let’s get your definition of living comfortably first that you do not think 75k is enough as a single person. Can’t wait to hear this.</p>
<p>The poverty level for an average family is 35k. Divide that by two and you have two people making 17.5k. That means at 75k you are making 4.5 times above the poverty level. You live in a fantasy world if you can’t live on that. </p>
<p>And if you didn’t get it from the responses after I posted that the consensus is that the KIDS on this forum have ridiculous expectations of what their salary will be. YOU are the one who has a different view of what comfortable is. </p>
<p>EDIT: the scary thing is you’re complaining about making 125k. Seriously, what world do you live in? If you’re making that much you’re making more than 95% of the people in this world. In other words there is a higher probability that you wont make NEAR that than you will make above that. Come back to earth, we’d be happy to have you back.</p>
<p>arnrg218, how much money do you currently live on, and how much money do you actually make a year?</p>