Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Engineering degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $63,997 two years after finishing, more than 85% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 271 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

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 $63,997 2 years after finishing · per graduate

Typical range $57,318–$65,573 middle half of US programmes

Over no degree +$24,477 vs $39,520 high-school median

Graduates a year 2,693 271 programmes

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

#	University	1 yr out	2 yrs out	3 yrs out	Graduates/yr
1	Harvey Mudd College cost & debt at this university →	$81,948	$81,997	$90,517	53
2	Brown University cost & debt at this university →	$70,583	$75,921	$80,783	80
3	Franklin W Olin College of Engineering	$91,352	$75,706	$104,429	39
4	Cornell University cost & debt at this university →	$57,169	$74,576	$84,905	7
5	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign cost & debt at this university →	not published	$72,727	$77,484	—
6	Lafayette College cost & debt at this university →	$67,714	$72,403	$75,320	13
7	University of California-Davis cost & debt at this university →	$74,487	$70,370	$89,594	—
8	Texas Christian University cost & debt at this university →	$63,234	$69,338	$76,296	51
9	The University of Tennessee-Chattanooga cost & debt at this university →	$54,615	$69,338	$69,556	—
10	McNeese State University cost & debt at this university →	$64,056	$69,338	$76,973	32
11	Arizona State University Campus Immersion	$63,561	$68,666	$80,283	160
12	Hope College cost & debt at this university →	$62,322	$67,101	$72,313	49

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $63,997 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $61,516 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 Engineering sits above the middle by $27,500.

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.

Engineering at other levels

Master's — $88,982 (B)

Scholarships for Engineering students

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

GIBB Bursary for South African Students, 2016 University of Salford Scholarships for International Students... ADG Engineering Bursary at Griffith University in Australia, 2... ISSCE International Scholarships in School of Civil Engineerin... CTGU Full and Partial Undergraduate Scholarship for Non-Chines... PhD Scholarship Engineering, Architecture and Information Tech...

See all Engineering scholarships →

Study Engineering Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

Civil Engineering — University of Toronto Civil Engineering and Computer Science — Northeastern University Civil Engineering - Water — University of Waterloo Civil Engineering and Computing Technology — University of Ottawa Civil Engineering - Sustainable and Resilient... — University of Ottawa Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering — University of New South Wa...

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

Electrical & Electronic Engineering Technology — $61,702 Human Computer Interaction — $62,012 Computer Programming — $62,260 Construction Engineering Technology & Technician — $63,855 Construction Management — $64,851 Mechanical Engineering — $64,990

Need a student loan for Engineering students?

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.

Free for students. We are not a lender and give no financial advice — we pass your request to partners and may be paid by them if you go ahead. One request per person per service; sending it again simply updates what we hold.

Engineering: the questions people ask

How much do Engineering graduates earn?

The median bachelor's graduate earns $63,997 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 53 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $61,282.