The CollegeScorecard database (https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ ) added earnings by major last week. I’ve been playing around with the database.
The table below compares median earnings by major for federal aid recipients, as listed in the database. The median earnings are based on tax reported income during the first year out of school among students receiving a bachelor’s and not immediately pursuing grad school. Earnings are weighted based on the number of federal aid recipients in each of the grouped colleges. For example a college with hundreds of students in the major would be weighted more than a college with dozens. I did not list a median when the sample was especially small. Federal aid recipients includes students receiving loans or grants during any year of college. Colleges are grouped in to the following 5 categories.
Ivies = USNWR top 20 national colleges that are Ivies
T20 = USNWR top 20 national colleges that are not Ivies
T50 Pri = USNWR top 21-50 national private colleges
T50 Pub = USNWR top 20-50 national public colleges
All = All reported 4-year private non-profit and public colleges in database
The “Engineering (All Majors)” grouping is the median for all majors with the word “engineering” in the title. The “All Students” grouping is the median for all students in the college grouping for which information is provided, regardless of major.
Some majors appear to have similar earnings for all of the above groups such as engineering and education. This implies that differences between the 5 colleges groupings all appear to have relatively little influence – differences in student quality (as measured by the criteria selective colleges admit for), differences in self selection effects, and differences employer selection or preferences effects. Other majors appear to have large differences among the different college groups, particularly computer science, mathematics, and economics. However, it is not clear which combination of student quality, self section effects, and employer selection effects is the primary driving force for these large differences in earnings .
There are even larger differences in median earnings among the different majors, more so at highly selective colleges. A CS major at a highly selective college might be expected to have triple the starting salary as a biology major (with only BS degree), even though both are STEM majors.
------------------ MEDIAN STARTING SALARY BY MAJOR -------------
Major Ivies T20 T50 Pri T50 Pub All
Computer Science+ $110k $104k $86k $81k $66k
Computer Engineering $84k $76k $70k
Electrical Engineering $75k $76k $67k
Mathematics $82k $78k $61k $50k $46k
Accounting $66k $58k $48k
Economics $74k $75k $59k $49k $47k
Mechanical Engineering $71k $72k $66k $66k $63k
Engineering (All Majors) $70k $73k $69k $67k $63k
Nursing $66k $74k* $62k $64k
Business $62k $61k $54k $42k
All Students $60k $57k $51k $44k $41k
Political Science $50k $44k $43k $35k $34k
Chemistry $38k $36k $34k
Education $37k $37k $35k $33k
Sociology $45k $35k $38k $31k $30k
Psychology $42k $36k $33k $29k $29k
English $36k $34k $34k $28k $27k
Biology $36k $34k $32k $29k $28k
Music $24k $24k $26k
Drama/Theater $23k $22k $21k $21k
+Includes Computer and Information Sciences Major
*Nursing drops from $74k to $67k without NYU
I only listed entries in the table when there was a sample from a good portion of the grouped colleges. Ivy League nursing only had 2 entries – Penn and Columbia – which was too few colleges to list. If I list all entries regardless of sample size, the table changes to the following: Columbia raises the nursing median substantially. It appears that colleges in NYC tend to have especially high starting salaries for nursing – Columbia, NYU, CUNY, etc.
------------------ MEDIAN FIRST YEAR EARNINGS BY MAJOR -----------
Major Ivies T20 T50 Pri T50 Pub All
Computer Science+ $110k $104k $86k $81k $66k
Computer Engineering $81k $84k $76k $70k
Electrical Engineering $83k $73k* $75k $76k $67k
Mathematics $82k $78k $61k $50k $46k
Economics $74k $75k $59k $49k $47k
Mechanical Engineering $71k $72k $66k $66k $63k
Engineering (All Majors) $70k $73k $69k $67k $63k
Nursing $74k $66k $74k^ $62k $64k
Business $62k $70k $61k $54k $42k
Accounting $64k $66k $58k $48k
All Students $60k $57k $51k $44k $41k
Political Science $50k $44k $43k $35k $34k
Sociology $45k $35k $38k $31k $30k
Psychology $42k $36k $33k $29k $29k
English $36k $34k $34k $28k $27k
Biology $36k $34k $32k $29k $28k
Education $32k $37k $37k $35k $33k
Chemistry $31k $38k $36k $34k
Drama/Theater $23k $22k $21k $21k
Music $21k $24k $24k $26k
+Includes Computer and Information Sciences Major
*Electrical Engineering increases from $73k to $101k, if you include MIT EECS
^Nursing drops from $74k to $67k without NYU
Wonder how the table would shift if instead of using overall rankings, major specific rankings were utilized? The T20 for undergraduate engineering looks different than the T20 overall.
major # grads median pay description
6 72 107000 EECS overall
6-1 6 86000 Electrical Science and Engineering
6-2 27 103000 Electrical Eng. and Computer Science
6-3 62 107000 Computer Science and Eng.
6-7 5 95000 Computer Science and Molecular Biology
6-1 would probably be closest to what is usually called “electrical engineering”, 6-2 would probably be closest to what is usually called “computer engineering”, and 6-3 would probably be closest to what is usually called “computer science”.
At other schools with EECS majors, it is likely that students emphasizing EE are far fewer than those emphasizing CS (e.g. UCB, where upper division EE versus CS class sizes suggest that relatively few students emphasize EE).
In the table below, I compare T20 rankings by 5 different methods as listed above the table. The top 20 test score, top 20 USNWR, and top 20 Forbes median earnings were all extremely similar; which is not unexpected since these 3 college lists are extremely similar. The only significant difference appears to be computer science which is ~$118k for highest test scores vs $108k for USNWR/Forbes. The few top 20 USNWR/Forbes colleges that do not have top test scores tend to pull down the CS median. This may indicate that test scores correlate with skills that CS employers value, more so than with most other majors.
The USNWR top engineering and top CS colleges have a lot of not quite as selective publics, which pulls down the median for some majors. Mathematics and economics have especially large drops. Other fields like nursing and general engineering have relatively little change. I expect this decrease relates to both a lower average student quality with less selective college admissions and public grads being more likely to choose in state employers over high salary + high cost of living out of state areas, such as Silicon Valley. Employer school preference also likely plays a role for some majors, such as Wall Street banking hiring of economics majors.
Score = 20 colleges with highest SAT/ACT scores, as listed in IPEDS
USNWR = USNWR top 20 national private universities
Forbes = Forbes top 20 colleges
Eng. = USNWR top 20 colleges in undergraduate engineering
CS = USNWR top 20 CS (top undergrad + remainder top grad)
------------------ MEDIAN FIRST YEAR EARNINGS BY MAJOR -----------
Major Score USNWR Forbes Eng. CS
Computer Science+ $118k $108k $108k $93k $92k
Computer Engineering $79k $80k
Electrical Engineering $80k* $80k* $77k $77k
Mathematics $77k $79k $77k $55k $54k
Accounting $58k $58k
Economics $74k $75k $75k $58k $55k
Mechanical Engineering $71k $72k $72k $69k $69k
Engineering (All Majors) $71k $72k $73k $69k $69k
Nursing $71k $68k $68k $68k $69k
Business $61k $63k $63k $57k $60k
All Students $61k $60k $60k $49k $49k
Political Science $47k $49k $49k $39k $39k
Chemistry $36k $36k
Sociology $41k $42k $34k $35k
Education $38k $39k $35k $37k
Psychology $39k $39k $39k $29k $32k
Biology $35k $35k $35k $32k $31k
English $34k $35k $36k $30k $30k
Music $23k $24k
Drama/Theater $22k $23k
+Includes Computer and Information Sciences Major
*Electrical Engineering increases from $80k to $93k, if you include MIT EECS
I mean all of the top 19 USNWR national list, excluding #20 = UCLA. I excluded UCLA to separate the large public effect mentioned above. I edited the post to say universities instead of colleges.
To be clear, U.S. News offers two “national” rankings: National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges. Based on your reply above, you appear to have focused on National Universities.