Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Pharmacy degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $41,565 two years after finishing, more than 51% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 81 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 $41,565 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $29,593–$41,937 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$2,045 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 2,784 81 programmes

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

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Duquesne University cost & debt at this university → not published $54,435 not published 116
2 West Chester University of Pennsylvania cost & debt at this university → not published $53,608 $57,532 12
3 Ohio Northern University cost & debt at this university → $39,800 $51,482 $56,776 99
4 Campbell University cost & debt at this university → $47,737 $45,500 $56,134 18
5 Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences $42,097 $41,937 $53,313 220
6 Purdue University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $35,132 $41,565 not published 60
7 North Carolina Central University cost & debt at this university → $33,882 $39,369 $54,542
8 University of Toledo cost & debt at this university → $43,168 $36,041 $48,109 168
9 Ohio State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $27,756 $34,420 $44,556 92
10 University of California-Davis cost & debt at this university → $32,847 $32,569 $29,133 57
11 DeSales University not published $29,593 not published 4
12 Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences not published $28,598 not published 39

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $41,565 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $37,705 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 Pharmacy sits above the middle by $5,068.

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.

Pharmacy at other levels

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Pharmacy: the questions people ask

How much do Pharmacy graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $41,565 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 14 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $37,466.
Is a Pharmacy 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 $2,045 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Pharmacy?
Half of US programmes report medians between $29,593 and $41,937. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Pharmacy each year?
About 2,784 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 81 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.

Classified by the Department of Education as Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration (CIP 5120). 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.