Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $33,043 two years after finishing, more than 17% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 127 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

D

The verdict on the money

Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.

Median earnings $33,043 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $26,353–$33,043 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree — vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 1,872 127 programmes

Where a Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Arizona State University Digital Immersion cost & debt at this university → $31,566 $41,565 $44,280 35
2 Arizona State University Campus Immersion $31,566 $41,565 $44,280 12
3 California State University-Sacramento cost & debt at this university → $35,960 $38,751 $45,912 56
4 California State University-Chico cost & debt at this university → $34,427 $38,072 $44,297 49
5 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign cost & debt at this university → $36,770 $37,568 $46,602 81
6 Metropolitan State University of Denver $37,024 $36,992 not published 4
7 University of Iowa cost & debt at this university → $31,686 $36,150 $41,413 43
8 Texas A&M University-College Station cost & debt at this university → $34,494 $35,461 $42,627 —
9 University of Nebraska at Kearney cost & debt at this university → $31,081 $35,416 $41,777 45
10 California State University-Fresno cost & debt at this university → $34,067 $35,240 $35,315 26
11 Brigham Young University cost & debt at this university → $42,900 $35,060 $41,299 123
12 Indiana University-Bloomington cost & debt at this university → $35,063 $35,060 $41,139 87

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $33,043 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $29,685 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 $36,497, so Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies sits below the middle by $3,454.

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.

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

Neurobiology and Neurosciences — $29,866 Human Development, Family Studies — $29,978 Nutrition Sciences — $30,699 Rehabilitation — $30,771 Romance Languages — $31,133 Human Biology — $31,189

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Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies: the questions people ask

How much do Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $33,043 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 59 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $31,967.
Is a Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies degree worth it?
Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.
What is the salary range for Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies?
Half of US programmes report medians between $26,353 and $33,043. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies each year?
About 1,872 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 127 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.