Where to go to college to make the most money — for each major. WashPost.

<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/21/where-to-go-to-college-to-make-the-most-money-for-each-major/?tid=sm_fb"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/21/where-to-go-to-college-to-make-the-most-money-for-each-major/?tid=sm_fb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A good mix of public and private regional/local schools included among the well-known national brands here. </p>

<p>The CS list is mostly not surprising, with most of the schools in California (i.e. ease of recruiting and interviewing at Silicon Valley computer companies).</p>

<p>Bradley is included in the engineering section even though it doesn’t get mentioned that much here. </p>

<p>The engineering section shows Rice & Lamar at the top, which probably reflects both schools being situated in TX in the heart of the oil patch. </p>

<p>It get mentioned now and then but there really are colleges that do an extremely good job in particular majors and are feeders to great jobs post graduation. It’s often difficult to get teens noses out of the USNWR and realize what is out there when the major is taken into consideration. Some of this is due to the act that so few kids really know what they want to major in when they are 18 years old. </p>

<p>The location where you live determines you salary, not the school.
The salaries that are pointed out for CA & engineering simply DO NOT EXIST in our city, not even close. But the living is also very cheap here. I would say that salaries are about half of what is in the article. But family of CS/Engineering couple could live very comfortably in our city on the half of what is listed. And vast majority of IY departments and engineering firms are hiring locally anyway from the pool of mstly in-state public and private UGs</p>

<p>This is such a faulty analysis. Mid career salary is a result of graduate degrees that happened in between college and work experience. Why do you think Harvard social sciences majors earn just as much as Engineering majors by mid career? Well, because a good chunk of them go to business and law school. </p>

<p>Who here in insane enough to believe that college and then stop is viable in today’s economy? Besides, you go to college not to get a degree, you go to get an education on your way to the next degree.</p>

<p>I was amused that if you are going to major in the humanities - go to Harvard! (Never mind that these days everyone apparently majors in Econ or Gov.)</p>

<p>None of my kids said ‘I want to go to the school which will give me the highest salary’. So while the numbers are interesting, they are meaningless to us. It was not part of our criteria.</p>

<p>However, it is best to be aware of such matters as post-graduation career prospects, as it may be relevant in strategies for preparing for seeking post-graduation jobs (e.g. how aggressively does one have to seek jobs early in one’s college years, and how to look for jobs in each potential career path).</p>

<p>Maybe, but the question ‘What school will help me land the job I would like’ is different than ‘What school will get me the highest salary’. I have 2 kids working making good money and a sophomore who has received favorable feedback from interviews for a competitive summer internship. They did research what students of the school do after graduation, but were not looking for the highest salary.</p>

<p>What were the sample sizes of each program? It’s meaningless to tell me that CSUF engineering grads have some of the highest mid career earnings if only 3 graduates of the program reported their earnings. </p>

<p>The pay levels are of interest even if the student is not looking for the highest pay level after graduation. Someone with naturally frugal habits will have more jobs and career paths available to him/her than someone with spendy habits, simply because the frugal one will be able to live comfortably at a lower pay level than the spendy one.</p>

<p>Posters are thinking like I am. A survey of many hundreds of thousands would be needed to really reflect reality. Factor in cost of living as well. And quality of life. Not to mention enrichment of life from attending the chosen school. And other intangibles. </p>