A college-by-college guide to which majors pay off — or don’t
By ARFA MOMIN and RON LIEBER
History majors can outearn English majors by more than $50,000 four years after graduation.
A Juilliard graduate — trained at one of the country’s most prestigious music schools — may not earn more than the median high school graduate.
And the place to get the single most lucrative degree in America wasn’t in the Ivy League, and it wasn’t in a computer science program. It was in the mathematics department at Duke University, where the median income among graduates was $297,029.
These are some of the surprises that emerged from an analysis by the HEA Group, a higher education research firm, of earnings data that the federal government has collected in recent years. It tracked students who received federal financial aid and graduated during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 periods.
The data is likely to draw protest from educators who believe that undergraduate education is not just about the earnings outcomes. Still, most institutions have done little to explain, with other data, how much people learn there or what they gain in friendship or career networks.
This infuriates many parents, who see list prices for popular private institutions going over $100,000 per year. Average net prices — even for affluent families who get a lot of merit aid — are much lower, but many families don’t understand that, given that most schools won’t guarantee a price before you apply.
The top of the earnings list is dominated by graduates of highly rejective schools — the Ivies and others, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and UCLA. The majors that top the list are computer science, mathematics and electrical engineering.
Graduates from top-earning programs can earn over $200,000 after four years.
The income data comes from whatever people reported on their federal tax returns. That means certain stock awards and other potential deferred compensation aren’t part of the totals.
The data exists because of federal legislation and regulations that Democrats and Republicans have supported. Politicians and policy experts have sought transparency (so higher education shoppers can examine earnings outcomes) and accountability (so taxpayers aren’t subsidizing schools that fail their students).
The newest law, which was passed last year, starts with graduates who received federal financial aid for a particular major or program at any institution. If the group is not earning the median income beyond that of high school graduates four years after completion — and that underperformance persists in two years out of three — students in that major will no longer be eligible for federal student loans in the direct loan program.
People in graduate school are not part of the analysis of undergraduate outcomes. In the earnings test, the Department of Education also excludes those from undergraduate programs with fewer than 30 students. The Duke math figure includes just 17 graduates.
The data highlights that schools with enormous barriers to entry produce high-earning graduates. But how much credit do the institutions deserve?
Research has shown that for many students, if you merely have the gumption to apply to one of these schools, you’ll earn as much as their graduates do even if you attend a different institution. But for Black, Hispanic and lower-income students, attendance at the high-barrier colleges can matter a great deal. Attending an eminent institution can help build a network of high-income mentors and be a signal to employers and graduate schools that recruit disproportionately at those institutions.
Other research concludes that if you want to get yourself into the 1%, these schools can improve your odds.
Prestige is not always protective. Music programs with great reputations like the Juilliard School, the University of Miami and Indiana University could flunk the new federal test if current trends persist.
According to Juilliard’s estimates, if the test was based on the 2026 earnings it projects for the 2022 graduates, the institution would pass. It’s also not in favor of a singular focus on earnings.
“Accountability frameworks should reflect the diverse ways graduates build careers and contribute to society, rather than relying on a single measure that may not accurately capture the value of their education and their potential,” said spokesperson Mary Caraccioli.
An Indiana University representative declined to comment. The University of Miami did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Just 2% of the colleges and universities will be at risk of failing if their earnings data does not change.
Meanwhile, some little-known names on the national scene rank near the top. Nursing programs at a handful of California schools, including California State University, East Bay; San Francisco State University; and Samuel Merritt University, produce graduates earning around $150,000 annually, putting them in the top 100 out of the nearly 25,000 bachelor’s programs the HEA Group analyzed nationwide. They stick out amid quantitative and science majors from institutions like the California Institute of Technology and Cornell University.
Defenders of the liberal arts will find some reassurance in the data. The median income of high school graduates nationwide is $34,808. English majors are comfortably above that, at a $48,920 median across all programs, while sociology graduates are at $52,197. We removed programs in Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, as their earnings benchmarks were much lower than those in U.S. states.
Your school can make a big difference — or matter very little — depending on the major. A graduate who studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University earned roughly $10,000 more than a graduate from the University of Alabama. That difference is over $150,000 if those same graduates studied computer science.
Majors with wide earnings ranges across schools.
To Michael Itzkowitz, founder of the HEA Group and director of the federal College Scorecard website during the Obama administration, the new earnings test is reasonable. It’s tough to capitalize on the things that college generally provides — skills to engage in democracy and better health — if you’re not earning enough.
“Ask anyone in the U.S., no matter where they’re from, ‘Do you want to go to college and earn less than a high school graduate?’” he said. “No one will say yes.”
Note on Institution Closures: These following institutions are included in the data but have closed: Anna Maria College, Birmingham-Southern College, Cabrini University, Eastern Nazarene College, Fontbonne University, Goddard College, Hodges University, Jamestown Business College, Laboure College of Healthcare, Limestone University, Lourdes University, Magdalen College, Miami International University of Art and Design, Northland College, Notre Dame College, Oak Point University, Pittsburgh Technical College, Providence Christian College, Siena Heights University, The College of Saint Rose, Trinity Christian College, Trinity International University-Illinois, University of Antelope Valley, University of the Arts, University of Valley Forge and Wells College. Hampshire College plans to close after the fall 2026 term, and California College of the Arts plan to close in June 2027.
