Master's · earnings grade

Is a Mathematics degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $53,810 two years after finishing, more than 44% of master's majors. Measured across 356 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

C

The verdict on the money

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.

Median earnings $53,810 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $44,021–$62,012 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$14,290 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 2,572 356 programmes

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

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Western Washington University cost & debt at this university → not published $78,343 not published 12
2 University of Nebraska at Omaha cost & debt at this university → not published $65,053 not published 13
3 California State University-Long Beach cost & debt at this university → $65,843 $65,053 not published 25
4 Iowa State University cost & debt at this university → not published $63,005 not published 4
5 California State University-Los Angeles cost & debt at this university → not published $63,005 $50,392 8
6 Villanova University cost & debt at this university → not published $62,012 not published 9
7 Georgia Southern University cost & debt at this university → not published $57,318 not published 9
8 University of Northern Iowa cost & debt at this university → $52,377 $55,151 not published 23
9 University of Houston cost & debt at this university → not published $54,644 not published 10
10 The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley cost & debt at this university → $49,717 $53,810 not published 27
11 Texas A&M University-College Station cost & debt at this university → not published $52,107 not published 16
12 University of Vermont cost & debt at this university → $54,176 $51,750 $52,521 6

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $53,810 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $52,959 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 Mathematics sits above the middle by $973.

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.

Mathematics at other levels

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Mathematics: the questions people ask

How much do Mathematics graduates earn?
The median master's graduate earns $53,810 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 20 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $52,377.
Is a Mathematics degree worth it?
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. The median graduate earns $14,290 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Mathematics?
Half of US programmes report medians between $44,021 and $62,012. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Mathematics each year?
About 2,572 students complete a master's in this field each year across 356 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.

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.