Master's · earnings grade

Is a Human Resources Management and Services degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $57,318 two years after finishing, more than 49% of master's majors. Measured across 348 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 $57,318 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $46,603–$69,338 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$17,798 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 8,292 348 programmes

Where a Human Resources Management and Services degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Pepperdine University cost & debt at this university → $92,220 $122,038 not published 71
2 Northern Kentucky University cost & debt at this university → $74,690 $101,406 $91,600 18
3 Cornell University cost & debt at this university → not published $101,072 $106,693 95
4 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign cost & debt at this university → $87,923 $93,033 $99,026 138
5 University of South Carolina-Columbia $92,505 $91,986 $97,806 42
6 Vanderbilt University cost & debt at this university → $108,703 $91,744 $87,553 38
7 University of San Francisco cost & debt at this university → $103,844 $91,744 $130,019 14
8 George Mason University cost & debt at this university → $86,911 $91,448 $99,722 21
9 Michigan State University cost & debt at this university → $90,313 $89,435 $101,511 51
10 Pace University cost & debt at this university → $78,760 $88,639 $99,483 25
11 Georgetown University cost & debt at this university → $73,972 $88,638 $98,134 72
12 Golden Gate University cost & debt at this university → $76,511 $84,653 $94,130 47

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $57,318 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $54,739 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 master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Human Resources Management and Services sits above the middle by $4,481.

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.

Human Resources Management and Services at other levels

Bachelor's — $45,061 (C)

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

Chemistry — $55,108 Communication Disorders Sciences — $55,724 Marketing — $58,693 Homeland Security — $59,124 Accounting — $59,954 Rehabilitation — $61,516

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Human Resources Management and Services: the questions people ask

How much do Human Resources Management and Services graduates earn?
The median master's graduate earns $57,318 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 149 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $55,615.
Is a Human Resources Management and Services 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 $17,798 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Human Resources Management and Services?
Half of US programmes report medians between $46,603 and $69,338. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Human Resources Management and Services each year?
About 8,292 students complete a master's in this field each year across 348 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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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.