Graduates earn a median $52,107 two years after finishing, more than 46% of master's majors. Measured across 219 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 | Texas Christian University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $135,393 | not published | 9 |
| 2 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus | not published | $122,038 | not published | 11 |
| 3 | The University of Texas at Austin cost & debt at this university → | not published | $81,702 | not published | 20 |
| 4 | University of Louisiana at Lafayette | $79,395 | $76,460 | not published | 17 |
| 5 | University of Houston cost & debt at this university → | $99,747 | $71,015 | $89,796 | 21 |
| 6 | Colorado School of Mines cost & debt at this university → | $62,256 | $64,990 | $82,134 | 35 |
| 7 | The University of Texas at San Antonio cost & debt at this university → | not published | $62,489 | not published | 12 |
| 8 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | not published | $59,485 | $71,574 | 13 |
| 9 | California State University-Fresno cost & debt at this university → | not published | $59,350 | not published | 15 |
| 10 | University of Nevada-Reno cost & debt at this university → | not published | $54,713 | not published | 13 |
| 11 | Montana Technological University | not published | $52,733 | not published | 5 |
| 12 | Montana State University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $52,107 | not published | 6 |
Two medians are worth separating. $52,107 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $53,723 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 master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Geological sits below the middle by $730.
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.
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 Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences (CIP 4006). 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.