Graduates earn a median $54,713 two years after finishing, more than 49% of master's majors. Measured across 171 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 | Pennsylvania State University-World Campus | $87,475 | $75,047 | $77,883 | 61 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → | $87,475 | $75,047 | $77,883 | — |
| 3 | George Mason University cost & debt at this university → | $79,656 | $71,351 | $77,517 | 12 |
| 4 | University of Washington-Tacoma Campus | $58,813 | $63,005 | $72,532 | 5 |
| 5 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | $58,813 | $63,005 | $72,532 | — |
| 6 | University of Southern California cost & debt at this university → | $65,686 | $60,094 | $69,090 | 74 |
| 7 | University of Denver cost & debt at this university → | $67,222 | $56,544 | $65,373 | 18 |
| 8 | Arizona State University Digital Immersion | $51,160 | $54,713 | not published | — |
| 9 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion | $51,160 | $54,713 | not published | 27 |
| 10 | CUNY Lehman College | not published | $54,644 | not published | 3 |
| 11 | University of Arizona cost & debt at this university → | $49,420 | $54,109 | $59,988 | 59 |
| 12 | California State University-Long Beach cost & debt at this university → | $55,942 | $53,775 | $66,230 | 26 |
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 $54,713, so Geography sits above the middle by $0.
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.
We may earn a commission if you take a loan through a provider here. It never changes the earnings figures on this page — those come from the US Department of Education.
Classified by the Department of Education as Geography and Cartography (CIP 4507). 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.