Annual Income by College Major Ranked by Quartile and Percentile

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Here’s another article about the relationship between college majors and future earnings. But this WSJ article at least looks beyond just providing the median wage and helps you visualize the spread between the 25th and 75th percentiles for each major:

wsjcollegerank

There is also an interactive chart embedded in the WSJ article. For example, I could sort to find the top 10 majors according to their 25th percentile wage, imagining more of a worst-case scenario that just assuming I’ll get the median income or higher. Here are a few more nuggets that may surprise you:

Graduates of architecture programs may have higher salaries than teachers, as the latest paper shows, but the February report noted that they’re also likely to see unemployment rates twice those of education majors.

[…] just choosing a major in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, known as the STEM fields, doesn’t secure a hefty paycheck. Mr. Carnevale’s team found that biology majors have median annual wages of $56,000 over their careers from age 25 to 59, or about one-third less than physicists.

Yet once biologists finish graduate programs—and more than half of them do—their median annual earnings jump to $96,000, roughly on par with physicists who have advanced degrees.

There are also wide ranges in salaries for specific majors. The top 25% of earners who majored in finance can expect annual earnings of more than $100,000, while the bottom quartile may bring in just about $50,000 a year.

[…] lifetime earnings for economics majors at the 90th percentile are nearly triple those at the 10th, reflecting the range of destinations for such experts in government and the private sector.

I support the notion that prospective income shouldn’t be the only consideration in choosing a career, as I’ve tried working in decent-paying fields that don’t interest me and it just didn’t work out. However, money remains a factor and I like to have an idea of what the stats are.

Here’s another thing to consider: early retirement in under 20 years requires a 50% savings rate. Such a savings ratio is much more likely if you make twice the overall median salary with median spending (make $120k household income, spend $60k) as opposed to a median salary and half-of-median spending (make $60k household, spend $30k). Someone could start working at 21, retire by 40, and spend the rest of their life doing whatever job or activity they wanted to. Semi-retirement is another option.

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Comments

  1. Architecture and engineering are definitely the most profitable fields, no surprise. Still, I was sure law majors would earn more money than the average… How is it possible ?

    • I don’t think law is really a major. You basically have to go to graduate/law school to work in the field

      • So upon looking law is listed as a major, but I don’t think that’s the type–or at least level–required to be a lawyer/attorney which is what most people would consider law.

  2. I always found the correlation between what you studied and how much a person makes interesting. And that is why I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Commerce majoring in Accounting. Without having the CPA my pay is about $75K and once I finish this summer, I could start looking for a job that pays six figures.

  3. Here is a link to the original study :
    https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/

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