Graduates earn a median $69,338 two years after finishing, more than 96% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 16 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.
Yes, on the money — this is one of the best-paying majors at this level in the country.
| # | University | 1 yr out | 2 yrs out | 3 yrs out | Graduates/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montana Technological University | not published | $84,653 | not published | 6 |
| 2 | Colorado School of Mines cost & debt at this university → | $71,308 | $77,715 | $91,467 | 17 |
| 3 | South Dakota School of Mines and Technology cost & debt at this university → | not published | $74,953 | not published | 13 |
| 4 | University of Arizona cost & debt at this university → | $76,657 | $73,035 | $87,557 | 16 |
| 5 | University of Kentucky cost & debt at this university → | not published | $71,015 | $83,128 | 19 |
| 6 | University of Nevada-Reno cost & debt at this university → | not published | $69,338 | $82,783 | 1 |
| 7 | Missouri University of Science and Technology cost & debt at this university → | $74,419 | $69,338 | $74,365 | 20 |
| 8 | West Virginia University cost & debt at this university → | $57,766 | $67,288 | $74,663 | 17 |
| 9 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $69,045 | $65,441 | $74,613 | 37 |
Two medians are worth separating. $69,338 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $71,015 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is lower here, which means the larger programmes in this field pay less than the small 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 Mining and Mineral Engineering sits above the middle by $32,841.
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.
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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.