Graduates earn a median $49,883 two years after finishing, more than 41% of master's majors. Measured across 118 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 | Chapman University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $72,899 | not published | — |
| 2 | New York University cost & debt at this university → | $58,465 | $63,600 | $66,324 | 48 |
| 3 | Russell Sage College | $48,184 | $55,286 | not published | 27 |
| 4 | Rush University | not published | $54,630 | $55,768 | 29 |
| 5 | Texas Woman's University cost & debt at this university → | $49,512 | $53,775 | $51,973 | 48 |
| 6 | Boston University cost & debt at this university → | $52,553 | $52,941 | not published | 34 |
| 7 | Tufts University cost & debt at this university → | $56,275 | $49,883 | $56,424 | 96 |
| 8 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cost & debt at this university → | $51,673 | $49,520 | $55,221 | 5 |
| 9 | University of Utah cost & debt at this university → | $46,381 | $46,478 | not published | 17 |
| 10 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor cost & debt at this university → | $27,148 | $40,896 | $52,839 | 47 |
| 11 | Northeastern University Professional Programs | $47,803 | $36,141 | not published | 13 |
| 12 | Northeastern University cost & debt at this university → | $47,803 | $36,141 | not published | — |
Two medians are worth separating. $49,883 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $49,702 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 Nutrition Sciences sits below the middle by $2,954.
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.
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.
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.