Graduates earn a median $52,733 two years after finishing, more than 63% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 131 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 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo cost & debt at this university → | $59,486 | $63,005 | $75,842 | 39 |
| 2 | Ohio State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | $58,700 | $62,012 | $64,578 | 37 |
| 3 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor cost & debt at this university → | $56,501 | $60,771 | $68,131 | 25 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | $55,225 | $60,623 | $65,761 | 28 |
| 5 | University of Wisconsin-Platteville cost & debt at this university → | $58,099 | $58,673 | $60,140 | 19 |
| 6 | University of Connecticut-Hartford Campus | $58,517 | $58,221 | not published | — |
| 7 | University of Connecticut-Stamford | $58,517 | $58,221 | not published | — |
| 8 | University of Connecticut-Avery Point | $58,517 | $58,221 | not published | — |
| 9 | University of Connecticut-Waterbury Campus | $58,517 | $58,221 | not published | — |
| 10 | University of Connecticut | $58,517 | $58,221 | not published | 20 |
| 11 | Florida Gulf Coast University cost & debt at this university → | $54,874 | $57,318 | $58,083 | 18 |
| 12 | University of Nevada-Reno cost & debt at this university → | $59,975 | $57,318 | not published | 10 |
Two medians are worth separating. $52,733 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $52,941 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is lower here, which means the larger programmes in this field pay less than the small 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 $42,682, so Environmental Engineering sits above the middle by $10,051.
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.
Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.
Tell us what you need and we will come back with the lenders that actually fund students from your country — including options with no US co-signer. No obligation, and we never charge you.
Classified by the Department of Education as Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering (CIP 1414). 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.