Master's · earnings grade

Is a Mechanical Engineering degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $82,882 two years after finishing, more than 83% of master's majors. Measured across 247 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

B

The verdict on the money

Yes — graduates earn more than most majors at this level.

Median earnings $82,882 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $75,518–$86,129 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$43,362 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 7,395 247 programmes

Where a Mechanical 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 Stanford University cost & debt at this university → $105,326 $111,435 $126,185 148
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology cost & debt at this university → $135,266 $111,435 $112,404 149
3 Wayne State University cost & debt at this university → $93,055 $97,071 not published 26
4 Oakland University cost & debt at this university → $97,963 $96,829 $102,429 36
5 California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo cost & debt at this university → $101,786 $94,408 not published 40
6 Purdue University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $91,040 $92,632 $104,408 219
7 University of New Mexico-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $97,169 $92,632 not published 41
8 University of Michigan-Dearborn cost & debt at this university → $96,361 $92,277 not published 43
9 Johns Hopkins University cost & debt at this university → $92,344 $91,078 $98,828 144
10 University of California-Los Angeles cost & debt at this university → $95,592 $90,533 $99,835 87
11 The University of Tennessee-Knoxville cost & debt at this university → not published $90,412 not published 23
12 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor cost & debt at this university → $92,958 $87,604 $94,703 144

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $82,882 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $81,702 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 Mechanical Engineering sits above the middle by $30,045.

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.

Mechanical Engineering at other levels

Bachelor's — $64,990 (A)

Scholarships for Mechanical Engineering students

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

Fully Funded PhD Studentship in Mechanical Engineering at Swan... PhD Scholarship Engineering, Architecture and Information Tech... Hubei Provincial Scholarship Programs in China, 2017-18 ANU International Fee Offset Scholarships in Australia, 2018 60 IET Power Academy Scholarships for Undergraduates in UK, 20... UK University of Sheffield Engineering International Scholarsh...
See all Mechanical Engineering scholarships →

Study Mechanical Engineering Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

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

Industrial Engineering — $83,547 Information Technology Management — $85,465 Applied Mathematics — $86,689 Management Sciences — $87,604 Aerospace Engineering — $88,573 Engineering — $88,982

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Mechanical Engineering: the questions people ask

How much do Mechanical Engineering graduates earn?
The median master's graduate earns $82,882 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 80 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $82,103.
Is a Mechanical Engineering degree worth it?
Yes — graduates earn more than most majors at this level. The median graduate earns $43,362 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Mechanical Engineering?
Half of US programmes report medians between $75,518 and $86,129. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Mechanical Engineering each year?
About 7,395 students complete a master's in this field each year across 247 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.
All degree grades Highest paying majors Most popular majors University costs & payback

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.