Graduates earn a median $34,586 two years after finishing, more than 41% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 78 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northwestern University cost & debt at this university → | $65,015 | $64,990 | $75,219 | 80 |
| 2 | New York University cost & debt at this university → | $29,855 | $39,369 | $45,786 | — |
| 3 | Central Michigan University cost & debt at this university → | $41,663 | $39,369 | $45,829 | 107 |
| 4 | Boricua College | $32,040 | $38,289 | $43,196 | — |
| 5 | Aquinas College cost & debt at this university → | $30,075 | $37,568 | not published | 2 |
| 6 | Empire State University | $38,496 | $36,387 | $38,150 | 313 |
| 7 | Metropolitan College of New York | $41,131 | $35,416 | $38,326 | — |
| 8 | Springfield College-Regional Online and Continuing Education | $37,713 | $34,586 | $36,916 | 72 |
| 9 | Springfield College | $37,713 | $34,586 | $36,916 | — |
| 10 | California State University-Dominguez Hills cost & debt at this university → | $32,068 | $33,993 | $39,395 | — |
| 11 | Black Hills State University cost & debt at this university → | $29,934 | $33,138 | $32,359 | 21 |
| 12 | Portland State University cost & debt at this university → | $29,429 | $31,423 | $37,414 | 25 |
Two medians are worth separating. $34,586 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $34,290 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.
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 bachelor's major in this dataset reports $36,497, so Community Organization and Advocacy sits below the middle by $1,911.
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.
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Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.