These College Major Graduates Enjoy the Highest Starting Salary!
*All data in this blog come from US News.
Choosing a college major is as crucial as selecting a best-fit college, if not more important. Giraffe Learning’s experts cannot emphasize enough that senior high school students must spend time investigating their career paths. While students may not work within their majors, they gain determination through their college studies. Meanwhile, rigorous programs allow students to become aware of the skills they are building to pursue various opportunities.
To make it comparable, this blog lists the US colleges in the #20s ranking, along with their majors with the highest starting salaries. Please be aware that we are only comparing the starting salaries since mid-age salaries attribute to a wide range of factors other than one’s undergrad study.
It may not be surprising, as we have already discussed in the Blog – Can You Have a Decent Career with an Arts Degree?, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) alumni generally gain higher starting salaries compared to their Arts peers. Nevertheless, in this blog, I will bring a new perspective and highlight some seldom discussed majors (such as Arts majors) that students and parents overlook, but yield a high rate of return.
1. University of California—Berkeley
UC Berkeley is the best-ranked public school in the UC system. While the median starting salary of alumni across all majors is $66800, graduates from majors such as Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics earn way more than that. Meanwhile, Social Science majors including Urban Studies and Economics lead to decent starting salaries of $71,400 and $69,500, respectively.
| Major | Alumni Starting Salaries |
| Computer Engineering | $108,800 |
| Electrical Engineering | $101,900 |
| Mathematics | $78,300 |
| Urban Studies | $71,400 |
| Economics | $69,500 |
2. University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
This public institution was founded in 1817 and ranked #23 in the 2022 edition of Best National Universities. The alumni’s median starting salary is $64,700 according to PayScale.
Majors such as Computer Engineering, Physics, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology are among the highest starting salaries across UMichigan’s undergrad majors.
Those who are not interested in STEM could select Accounting (with a starting salary of $70,200) as a decent choice. I also want to point out that the alumni starting salaries for STEM majors such as Microbiological Sciences and Immunology ($42,500), and Chemistry ($49,100) may be much lower than most parents’ expectations.
We will discuss more on the low starting salaries majors in the next blog.
| Major | Alumni Starting Salaries |
| Computer Engineering | $84,200 |
| Physics | $80,500 |
| Accounting | $70,200 |
| Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology | $68,600 |
3. Emory University
Ranked #21 in National Universities, Emory is well-known for its Business and Registered Nursing majors. Not surprisingly, Emory’s Finance and Accounting alumni gain high starting salaries of $81,000 and $74,300, respectively. Other Business majors such as Marketing and Business Administration both enjoy high starting salaries with numbers greater than 62K.
I want to highlight that the starting salary of Fine and Studio Arts alumni marks a decent $67,600, tying the Mathematics graduates ($67,100).
| Emory University | |
| Major | Alumni Starting Salaries |
| Finance | $81,000 |
| Accounting | $74,300 |
| Fine and Studio Arts | $67,600 |
4. Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon is another university best known for its Computer Science and Engineering majors. According to the US News, its Undergraduate Computer Science Program ranks #1 nationally, tying MIT and Standford. Graduates of such majors indeed gain enviable starting salaries. However, it is worth noticing that Carnegie Mellon has strong Visual and Performing Arts programs whose starting salary is 73K.
| Carnegie Mellon University | |
| Major | Alumni Starting Salaries |
| Computer Engineering | $94,800 |
| Mathematics | $90,900 |
| Mechanical Engineering | $76,800 |
| Design and Applied Arts | $73,700 |
5. New York University
Ranked #18 in National Universities and #6 in Best Universities for Arts and Humanities globally, New York University allows its alumni the median starting salary of $59,500. Besides the STEM majors, NYU has many other popular programs worth mentioning.
NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing “offers one of the top-ranked baccalaureate nursing programs in the country through 15-month accelerated and traditional four-year programs” (https://nursing.nyu.edu/). Its alumni have a high starting salary of $79,400.
The Business Programs of NYU also bring a high return on investment. Finance, Accounting, and International Business are options for those less interested in the STEM field.
| New York University | |
| Major | Alumni Starting Salaries |
| Finance | $85,000 |
| Accounting | $79,400 |
| Nursing | $79,400 |
| Computer Engineering | $79,200 |
| International Business | $78,700 |
Conclusion
With college admissions becoming more vying, choosing the best-fit school along with its major is essential. While parents are often obsessed with STEM programs, we suggest that they become introspective and pragmatic about reality. Inflicting a student on a major that she is not interested in or not good at derogates multiple prospects.
Success comes in different ways, and we suggest that students explore various colleges and their corresponding offerings. As we previously mentioned in our other blogs, when demonstrating strong soft skills, Arts graduates can catch up with the salary gap. Instead of focusing on the trending majors, students should identify their future careers so that they can develop holistic views about what they need to achieve in the long run. Please contact Giraffe Learning to understand more about how to select universities and/or majors. Click here to know about these services.
