Why are UNC's grads' salaries so low?

Payscale reported Unc Chapel Hill as having the 357th highest median mid-career salary in the country at $79,400 a year. Why does one of the top schools have such low salaries? Should these studies be taken with a grain of salt?

It’s a big state school with a gazillion majors…what are you comparing it to?

Take with a huge grain of salt.

@mom2coIIegekids What do you mean by what am I comparing it to? I am wondering why a highly regarded school is so low and behind schools that nobody has ever heard of.

@ichiro Manhattan College is $112,000. Alot has to do with popular majors and career choices, plus geography.

Teachers that go to UNC make the same as a state teachers college, same for nurses and many other professions. Maybe UNC graduates a lot of Education majors.

UNC does not have an engineering school, which helps boost salaries.

Most people stay in the region that they went to college. Cost of living in North Carolina and in the SouthEast is much less than in the Northeast. The same accountant that starts at 45k in North Carolina will probably start at $65k in the northeast. $74k is still a pretty high beginning salary anyway you look at it.

Yeah, no engineering school and many graduates work in the South.

Schools with a large number of STEM students, particularly eng’g students, will likely have higher numbers.

It’s silly to look at a school “as a whole,” particularly a large state school. It tells you nothing.

Comparing salaries of undergrads can be misleading of you’re not careful, like in this case. UNC, as many people already mentioned has no engineering school (that’s at NC State). North Carolina has lower cost of living relative to urban cities such as New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, even Chicago.

In the 1990’s, the joke on campus was that geography was the most lucrative major at UNC with the average salary being well into the the six figures. Michael Jordan was a geography major.

You need to look at salaries in the specific major and then adjust for cost of living in the area. In addition, many NE schools send their students to high paying areas like financial services.

To put it another way, lets say you are a CS grad from Berkeley and earn $100K in Palo Alto. You have $70K left over after taxes. Your rent is $20K/yr, so you have $50K left to live on. That same CS grad from UNC living in Raleigh gets paid $85K, with $65K left after taxes. Rent is $10K, leaving $55K to live on. Who is better off?

Raleigh/ Chapel Hill/ Durham/ Cary area is filled with a very highly educated workforce. Large amount of Masters and PH’ds. Look at how many high paid jobs are there in comparison to workforce and look at that in comparison to big cities. Most people who graduate from UNC/ Duke/ NC State stay in area. Hence salaries are low: its supply and demand.