Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a General Sales degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $45,435 two years after finishing, more than 66% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 89 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

C

The verdict on the money

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.

Median earnings $45,435 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $39,523–$52,198 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$5,915 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 2,458 89 programmes

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

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Baylor University cost & debt at this university → $71,388 $84,653 $98,739 35
2 Western Governors University cost & debt at this university → $81,520 $71,015 $72,823 1
3 Ball State University cost & debt at this university → $46,833 $69,338 not published 25
4 St Catherine University not published $65,053 not published 3
5 American Public University System cost & debt at this university → $37,227 $57,318 not published 9
6 Bellevue University cost & debt at this university → $70,231 $56,415 $62,468 1
7 Kennesaw State University cost & debt at this university → $56,385 $55,964 $58,580 30
8 William Paterson University of New Jersey $54,414 $52,607 $64,085 4
9 Bowling Green State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $55,026 $52,198 not published 36
10 Purdue University-Main Campus $56,811 $51,750 $61,688 94
11 Weber State University cost & debt at this university → $56,374 $51,722 $53,553 118
12 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities $50,056 $51,482 $60,455 105

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $45,435 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $47,846 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 $36,497, so General Sales sits above the middle by $8,938.

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.

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

Real Estate — $49,588 Finance — $49,864 Fire Protection — $50,105 Information Technology Management — $51,035 Science, Technology and Society — $52,107 Management Sciences — $52,107

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General Sales: the questions people ask

How much do General Sales graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $45,435 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 33 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $48,013.
Is a General Sales degree worth it?
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. The median graduate earns $5,915 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for General Sales?
Half of US programmes report medians between $39,523 and $52,198. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in General Sales each year?
About 2,458 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 89 US programmes.
Does this include student debt?
No — and deliberately. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not debt, so any "debt by major" figure you see elsewhere is an estimate. Debt is published per institution, which is why our university pages carry it and this page does not.
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Classified by the Department of Education as General Sales, Merchandising and Related Marketing Operations (CIP 5218). 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.