Graduates earn a median $71,823 two years after finishing, more than 69% of master's majors. Measured across 209 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
Yes — graduates earn more than most majors at this level.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Columbia University in the City of New York | $81,566 | $84,653 | $88,016 | 115 |
| 2 | University of Southern California cost & debt at this university → | $81,695 | $84,100 | $94,330 | 35 |
| 3 | Manhattan University | $92,655 | $83,848 | $98,814 | 13 |
| 4 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh | $80,860 | $81,702 | $86,459 | 62 |
| 5 | Stanford University cost & debt at this university → | $78,911 | $80,276 | $91,659 | 212 |
| 6 | University of Connecticut-Hartford Campus | not published | $80,124 | $78,877 | — |
| 7 | University of Connecticut-Stamford | not published | $80,124 | $78,877 | — |
| 8 | University of Connecticut-Avery Point | not published | $80,124 | $78,877 | — |
| 9 | University of Connecticut-Waterbury Campus | not published | $80,124 | $78,877 | — |
| 10 | University of Connecticut | not published | $80,124 | $78,877 | 5 |
| 11 | Norwich University cost & debt at this university → | $77,018 | $80,032 | $83,195 | 15 |
| 12 | California State University-Sacramento cost & debt at this university → | $76,787 | $80,022 | $90,507 | 21 |
Two medians are worth separating. $71,823 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $71,015 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 Civil Engineering sits above the middle by $18,986.
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.
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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.