Graduates earn a median $89,968 two years after finishing, more than 99% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 12 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
Yes, on the money — this is one of the best-paying majors at this level in the country.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maine Maritime Academy | $94,796 | $97,705 | $105,033 | 24 |
| 2 | Massachusetts Maritime Academy | $83,261 | $89,968 | $104,400 | 73 |
| 3 | SUNY Maritime College cost & debt at this university → | $71,291 | $81,997 | $90,122 | 22 |
| 4 | Texas A&M University-College Station cost & debt at this university → | $65,583 | $70,456 | $80,353 | — |
| 5 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor cost & debt at this university → | not published | $67,240 | $76,836 | 29 |
Two medians are worth separating. $89,968 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $81,997 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 bachelor's major in this dataset reports $42,682, so Naval Architecture sits above the middle by $47,286.
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.
See all Naval Architecture scholarships →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 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (CIP 1422). 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.