A number of websites offer information on the expected salary from specific college degrees. Surprisingly, the figures differ quite a bit across these websites, suggesting that most rely on small, unrepresentative samples. To remedy that, this page uses the most comprehensive data source: the Public-Use Microsample (PUMS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, made available by IPUMS USA, University of Minnesota, www.ipums.org:

The most recent ACS PUMS data contain almost 16 million observations, each representing a person sampled from the entire US population in the years 2017-2021. Sample weights allow extrapolation of these data to the entire population.

Tables and Charts

Wages for the most popular majors (graphic)

The data used for Figure 1, below, are restricted to persons between the ages of 25 and 29 (inclusive), who have earned a single Bachelor degree (no double majors, no graduate degree), and who worked at least 40 weeks in the sample year, and at least 30 hours per week on average.

Median wages are shown on the vertical scale: since the wage distribution has a long right tail, a few very high wages push up the mean, making the median a more realistic figure for expected wage. The horizontal scale shows the log of the number of degree-holders. Only 88 of the 173 degrees are shown.

The dotted blue line at $42,000 represents the median wage of automobile bodyshop workers (OCC code 7150), ages 25 to 29, with only a high school degree, working at least 40 weeks of the year for at least 30 hours per week. Points shaped like triangles indicate Bachelor degrees where at least 20% of holders are foreign-born. The color blue indicates degrees whose holders are over 50% female.

Figure 1 should give some insight into how most college majors will fare in their first years in the labor market. Note how math-heavy majors have a high proportion of the foreign-born, earn higher salaries, and are predominantly male. Note also that majors that are personally or spiritually fulfilling (e.g., Drama, or Religious Studies) tend to lead to low salaries. A few majors (e.g., Biology) can lead to high salaries as a foundation for a graduate or professional degree, but are not high-earning on their own. Economics and Finance are among the highest-earning degrees.

Figure 1: Median wage, by Bachelor degree held, for full-time workers with one Bachelor degree and no graduate work, ages 25-29

Occupations predominantly staffed by those with a high school diploma (table)

Is it worthwhile to go to college? To answer this question we need to look at the opportunity cost of college – we need to see what kinds of jobs, at what wages, are available to someone with a high school diploma, but no further education.

The sample for the following table consists of all persons, ages 25-29, working at least 40 weeks a year, with an average of at least 30 hours per week, who have only a regular high school diploma. Only 193 of the 519 occupations listed in the ACS are predominantly staffed by high school graduates, and these are shown.

The table can be filtered by using the search boxes, and it can be sorted by any field.

Occupations predominantly staffed by those with a Bachelors degree (table)

The occupations listed as predominantly staffed by persons with just a high school diploma should be compared with the 244 occupations that are predominantly staffed by persons with just a Bachelors degree.

The sample for following table consists of all persons, ages 25-29, working at least 40 weeks a year, with an average of at least 30 hours per week, who have a Bachelors degree but no further education.

The table can be filtered by using the search boxes, and it can be sorted by any field.

Occupations chosen by business major (table)

Students often ask, “What kind of job can I get with an Economics degree?” The question is hard to answer, because fewer than 2% of Economics Bachelor degree holders work as Economists. Nevertheless, Economics is a good background for many occupations, especially when combined with a graduate degree in other subjects.

We can address this question by extracting the full-time workers with Economics degrees in the ACS IPUMS, and tallying up the number working in each of the 519 Census occupational categories. From this we can calculate the percent of Economics degree holders working in each occupation.

To provide some comparison, we do this for six of the business majors offered here at the MTSU Jones College of Business, as seen in the following table:

Six business Bachelor degrees offered at MTSU
abbrv	BA.degree
ECON	Economics
ACTG	Accounting
MGMT	Business Management and Administration
MKT	Marketing and Marketing Research
FIN	Finance
INFS	Management Information Systems and Statistics

The sample for each of the six degrees consists of all persons, ages 25-65, working at least 40 weeks a year, with an average of at least 30 hours per week, who have a Bachelor degree in the subject. Each person may have multiple other degrees. Only 302 of the 519 occupations are listed in the following table. These are the occupations with at least 0.1% of degree holders from at least one of the six business majors.

The table can be filtered by using the search boxes, and it can be sorted by any field. The prestige field gives a prestige score for the occupation, and the median.wage gives the median wage for all workers ages 25-65 in that occupation.

Wage growth by major (graphic)

Figure 2 below shows the difference in median wages between degree holders age 25-29 and holders of the same degree ages 45-65. All 173 degrees present in the Census data are shown, not simply the most popular. Unlike Figure 1, the sample includes those with double majors or graduate degrees. Like Figure 1, the sample contains only those working at least 40 weeks per year, for an average of at least 30 hours a week.

This figure gives some insight into wage growth stemming from job experience. Only a few degrees show a decline. A handful show extraordinary increases, and these tend to be in fields experiencing strong technological progress, fields where even young degree holders earn high wages.

A few of these results are no doubt anomalous. Some undergraduate degrees, such as Public Policy, may be offered at only a few elite schools, where students, on average, have high ability and unusually high levels of social capital, and are therefore very likely to earn high wages. Others, such as Neuroscience, are relatively new college degree programs, and may have very few degree holders in the older age group, and these may be highly compensated senior scientists. The extremely high returns for Petroleum Engineering occurred in a period with high petroleum prices, when it was profitable to employ fracking and other creative methods requiring skilled engineers.

Figure 2: Median wage, by Bachelor degree, for full-time workers: comparing ages 25-29 with ages 45-65

Wage growth by major (table)

The table below shows the difference in median wages between degree holders age 25-29 and holders of the same degree ages 45-65. All 173 degrees present in the Census data are shown, not simply the most popular. Unlike Figure 1, the sample includes those with double majors or graduate degrees. Like Figure 1, the sample contains only those working at least 40 weeks per year, for an average of at least 30 hours a week.

This table gives some insight into wage growth stemming from job experience. Only a few degrees show a decline. A handful show extraordinary increases, and these tend to be in fields experiencing strong technological progress, fields where even young degree holders earn high wages.

Demographics of majors (table)

The table below provides some demographic detail for Bachelor degree holders age 25-29 working at least 40 weeks per year, for an average of at least 30 hours a week. The sample includes those with multiple Bachelor and graduate degrees. The column on the far right shows the percent of the sample with that particular degree.

The table can be filtered by using the search boxes, and it can be sorted by any field. The prestige field gives a prestige score and the median.wage gives the median wage, for all workers ages 25-29 in that occupation.

Wages for ancestry groups (graphic)

Identity politics has made Americans much more conscious of the ethnic origins of their compatriots. Here is an attempt to map out the relative socio-economic status of identifiable ethnic groups.

We extracted from ACS IPUMS all records for people ages 25-65, working at least 40 weeks per year, for an average of at least 30 hours per week. These are people at all levels of educational attainment. The data contain two fields giving the ancestry of each person, as well as a field giving detailed race, a field giving the country of ancestry for persons who are Hispanic, and a field giving country of birth. For any cases where ancestry information was missing, these other fields were used, in this order: first country of ancestry for Hispanics, then country of birth, and finally race. The end result, after a few consolidations or eliminations of very small groups, is 141 ancestries.

The graphic shows, on the horizontal scale, the percent of each ancestry holding at least a Bachelor degree; and on the vertical scale, the median annual wage. The size of each point is proportional to the number of persons in the category. Red circles represent ancestry groups that are predominantly native-born, and cyan triangles represent groups that are predominantly foreign-born. The green line is the regression line for which median wage is the dependent variable and percent with Bachelor degree is the independent variable.

The most obvious message from this graphic is that groups with higher levels of education earn higher wages. College matters. Note that most predominantly foreign-born groups fall below the regression line, indicating a clear wage penalty for the foreign-born. Nevertheless, a few predominantly foreign-born groups do lie above the regression line, most notably, Indians.

Figure 3: Ancestry groups: Median wage and percent with at least a Bachelor degree, for full-time workers ages 25-65

Occupational prestige for ancestry groups (graphic)

This is a second attempt to map out the relative socio-economic status of identifiable ethnic groups. Here we use occupational prestige, calculated as the weighted mean of the prestige of occupations in which members of an ancestry group work. ACS IPUMS contains several measures of occupational prestige. This particular prestige measure was determined by a survey in which subjects ranked each occupation on a “ladder” from one to nine, with one the least prestigious and nine the most.

The graphic shows, on the horizontal scale, the percent of each ancestry holding at least a Bachelor degree; and on the vertical scale, the mean occupational prestige. The size of each point is proportional to the number of persons in the category. Red circles represent ancestry groups that are predominantly native-born, and cyan triangles represent groups that are predominantly foreign-born. The green line is the regression line for which mean occupational prestige is the dependent variable and percent with Bachelor degree is the independent variable.

Compared to Figure 3, in which the vertical scale represented median wage, this chart shows an even more pronounced tendency for the predominantly foreign-born groups to fall below the regression line, and the predominantly native-born groups to rise above the line.

Figure 4: Ancestry groups: Mean occupational prestige and percent with at least a Bachelor degree, for full-time workers ages 25-65

College majors and their labor market outcomes