Graduates earn a median $33,993 two years after finishing, more than 39% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 412 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 | Monmouth University | $49,648 | $48,177 | $52,048 | 53 |
| 2 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick | $47,814 | $48,041 | not published | — |
| 3 | University of Houston-Clear Lake | not published | $47,572 | $49,872 | 15 |
| 4 | Seattle Pacific University cost & debt at this university → | $49,856 | $47,260 | not published | 11 |
| 5 | University of Hawaii-West Oahu | $46,264 | $45,636 | $50,444 | 42 |
| 6 | Illinois Wesleyan University cost & debt at this university → | not published | $43,426 | not published | 3 |
| 7 | City University of Seattle cost & debt at this university → | $45,564 | $43,240 | $45,889 | 1 |
| 8 | Purdue University Northwest cost & debt at this university → | $39,705 | $41,342 | not published | — |
| 9 | University of Wisconsin-Platteville cost & debt at this university → | $36,984 | $41,007 | not published | — |
| 10 | Southern Connecticut State University cost & debt at this university → | $31,650 | $40,393 | $41,151 | — |
| 11 | Stonehill College | not published | $40,338 | $41,547 | 20 |
| 12 | Michigan State University cost & debt at this university → | $40,045 | $40,089 | $42,617 | 156 |
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 Education sits below the middle by $2,504.
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.
Classified by the Department of Education as Education, General (CIP 1301). 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.