Master's · earnings grade

Is a Anthropology degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $38,289 two years after finishing, more than 7% of master's majors. Measured across 176 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

The verdict on the money

On earnings alone this is among the lowest-paying majors at this level. That does not make it a bad subject, but it does make the debt you take on for it matter more.

Median earnings $38,289 2 years after finishing

Typical range $33,993–$42,682 middle half of US programmes

Over no degree — vs $39,520 high-school median

Graduates a year 1,028 176 programmes

Where a Anthropology degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#	University	1 yr out	2 yrs out	3 yrs out	Graduates/yr
1	University of Nevada-Reno cost & debt at this university →	not published	$50,439	not published	5
2	Northern Arizona University cost & debt at this university →	$37,988	$46,478	$51,032	23
3	University of North Texas cost & debt at this university →	not published	$42,682	$51,351	16
4	University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus	not published	$42,682	not published	9
5	Monmouth University	not published	$40,467	not published	11
6	University of Denver cost & debt at this university →	$36,492	$39,927	not published	6
7	Texas State University cost & debt at this university →	$45,593	$38,289	not published	16
8	The University of Montana cost & debt at this university →	not published	$37,208	not published	11
9	Georgia State University cost & debt at this university →	$32,866	$36,668	$45,768	17
10	Binghamton University	$43,330	$33,993	not published	26
11	University of South Florida cost & debt at this university →	$42,390	$33,993	$35,695	8
12	University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee cost & debt at this university →	not published	$33,281	not published	10

What this figure does and does not tell you

It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Anthropology sits below the middle by $14,548.

Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".

There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.

Anthropology at other levels

Bachelor's — $25,194 (F)

Scholarships for Anthropology students

Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.

PhD Social Anthropology in University of Oslo Norway 2017 2017 International Graduate Fellowships at American University... Harvard South Asia Institute Raghunathan Family PhD Fellowship... 100 Plus Macquarie University UAC International Scholarships i... 69 Ca’ Foscari University of Venice Positions and Scholarships... Institute for Advanced Study (IAST) Doctoral Scholarship in Fr...

See all Anthropology scholarships →

Study Anthropology Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

Biological Anthropology — University of Cambridge Anthropology — University of Oxford Archaeology and Anthropology — University of Oxford Anthropology - Evolutionary (Hons) — University of Toronto Anthropology - Socio-Cultural (Hons) — University of Toronto Anthropology — Trent University

Majors that pay more at this level Closest first — useful if you are still choosing.

Social Sciences — $38,481 Arts, Entertainment — $38,829 English — $39,261 History — $39,927 Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences, General — $40,506 Sociology — $40,560

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Anthropology: the questions people ask

How much do Anthropology graduates earn?

The median master's graduate earns $38,289 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 13 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $39,560.