Bachelor’s Degrees Leading to Highest Salaries
These jobs pay handsomely early in your career — and big bucks later.
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A bachelor’s degree today is basically like a high school diploma 20 years ago. Everybody’s got one and the only way to get a decent salary is to go to grad school — and get yourself even further in student loan debt.
Right?
Wrong — especially if you’re in certain industries.
Payscale examined the highest-paying bachelors degrees by salary potential — and found that plenty have nice entry-level pay and lead to six-figure salaries by the time you reach mid-career. (It’s all part of Payscale’s 2015-2016 College Salary Report, which also ranked colleges based on salary potential. Here’s how Philly colleges ranked on potential salary.)
Some interesting findings in the bachelor’s degree study:
- 25 out of the top 26 jobs are in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.)
- The outlier was “government” which could certainly have a STEM connection but doesn’t necessarily have to.
- When ranking the top 26 by percentage of alumni who feel their work is making the world a better place, engineering dominated — with mining engineering coming out on top, followed by petroleum engineering, chemical engineering and aeronautical engineering.
| Rank | Major | Early Career Pay | Mid-Career Pay | % High Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Petroleum Engineering | $101,000 | $168,000 | 71% |
| 2 | Nuclear Engineering | $68,200 | $121,000 | 58% |
| 3 | Actuarial Mathematics | $58,800 | $119,000 | 48% |
| 4 | Chemical Engineering | $69,500 | $118,000 | 61% |
| 5 | Electronics & Communications Engineering | $65,000 | $116,000 | 55% |
| 6 | Computer Science (CS) & Engineering | $69,100 | $115,000 | 43% |
| 7 (tie) | Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) | $67,000 | $114,000 | 53% |
| 7 (tie) | Systems Engineering | $67,100 | $114,000 | 60% |
| 9 | Aeronautical Engineering | $65,100 | $113,000 | 61% |
| 10 (tie) | Computer Engineering (CE) | $68,400 | $109,000 | 48% |
| 10 (tie) | Mining Engineering | $71,500 | $109,000 | 79% |
| 12 (tie) | Electrical Engineering (EE) | $66,500 | $108,000 | 55% |
| 12 (tie) | Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering | $61,100 | $108,000 | 58% |
| 14 (tie) | Aerospace Engineering | $64,800 | $107,000 | 57% |
| 14 (tie) | Computer Science (CS) & Mathematics | $62,900 | $107,000 | 36% |
| 16 (tie) | Industrial Distribution | $58,100 | $106,000 | 48% |
| 16 (tie) | Physics | $55,500 | $106,000 | 48% |
| 18 (tie) | Computer Science (CS) | $63,100 | $105,000 | 41% |
| 18 (tie) | Materials Science & Engineering | $64,600 | $105,000 | 46% |
| 20 (tie) | Applied Mathematics | $55,800 | $102,000 | 40% |
| 20 (tie) | Cognitive Science | $51,400 | $102,000 | 38% |
| 20 (tie) | Government | $46,900 | $102,000 | 47% |
| 20 (tie) | Mechanical Engineering (ME) | $62,500 | $102,000 | 52% |
| 24 (tie) | Finance & Economics | $55,700 | $101,000 | 43% |
| 24 (tie) | Physics & Mathematics | $50,900 | $101,000 | 43% |
