Master's · earnings grade

Is a Electrical Engineering degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $96,775 two years after finishing, more than 93% of master's majors. Measured across 256 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

A

The verdict on the money

Yes, on the money — this is one of the best-paying majors at this level in the country.

Median earnings $96,775 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $82,440–$97,959 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$57,255 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 9,188 256 programmes

Where a Electrical Engineering degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology cost & debt at this university → $144,716 $150,045 $183,153 78
2 Stanford University cost & debt at this university → $128,556 $135,709 $157,500 138
3 University of California-Berkeley cost & debt at this university → not published $122,038 $167,052 184
4 Carnegie Mellon University cost & debt at this university → $109,283 $120,549 $122,667 446
5 Santa Clara University cost & debt at this university → not published $116,083 not published —
6 University of Washington-Bothell Campus $106,287 $106,421 $121,695 9
7 University of Wisconsin-Madison cost & debt at this university → not published $106,421 not published 114
8 University of Washington-Seattle Campus $106,287 $106,421 $121,695 162
9 University of Michigan-Dearborn cost & debt at this university → $99,849 $105,083 $121,452 51
10 Johns Hopkins University cost & debt at this university → $101,186 $104,192 $113,392 208
11 Oakland University cost & debt at this university → $99,486 $103,078 $104,636 35
12 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign cost & debt at this university → $100,444 $103,078 not published 162

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $96,775 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $92,632 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 Electrical Engineering sits above the middle by $43,938.

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.

Electrical Engineering at other levels

Bachelor's — $69,338 (A)

Scholarships for Electrical Engineering students

Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.

GIBB Bursary for South African Students, 2016 Facebook Emerging Scholar Program for US and International Stu... University of Kent, School of Engineering and Digital Arts Ind... Empowerment of Disabled people through the User Co-production... NTNU PhD Fellowship in Learning Analytics and Interaction for... CTGU Full and Partial Undergraduate Scholarship for Non-Chines...
See all Electrical Engineering scholarships →

Study Electrical Engineering Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

Electrical Engineering — KTH Royal Institute of Tec... Electrical Engineering — Toronto Metropolitan Unive... Electrical Engineering — Dalhousie University Electrical Engineering and Computing Technolog... — University of Ottawa Master’s in Electrical Engineering (Memory) — Laval University Biomedical and Electrical Engineering — Carleton University

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

Computer Science — $94,408 Computer Engineering — $94,408 Nursing — $96,126 Systems Engineering — $99,291 Allied Health Diagnostic — $102,326 Medical Clinical Sciences & Graduate Medical Studies — $122,038

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Electrical Engineering: the questions people ask

How much do Electrical Engineering graduates earn?
The median master's graduate earns $96,775 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 71 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $94,709.
Is a Electrical Engineering degree worth it?
Yes, on the money — this is one of the best-paying majors at this level in the country. The median graduate earns $57,255 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Electrical Engineering?
Half of US programmes report medians between $82,440 and $97,959. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Electrical Engineering each year?
About 9,188 students complete a master's in this field each year across 256 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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Classified by the Department of Education as Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering (CIP 1410). 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.