Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Political Science degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $35,213 two years after finishing, more than 39% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 1,130 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

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 $35,213 2 years after finishing · per graduate

Typical range $29,751–$37,896 middle half of US programmes

Over no degree — vs $39,520 high-school median

Graduates a year 41,107 1,130 programmes

Where a Political Science 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	Dartmouth College cost & debt at this university →	$57,095	$62,192	$75,463	182
2	Harvard University cost & debt at this university →	$58,808	$57,017	$64,803	164
3	Columbia University in the City of New York	$52,096	$56,415	$61,253	232
4	Duke University cost & debt at this university →	$43,130	$54,463	$68,481	111
5	American Public University System cost & debt at this university →	$46,663	$54,109	$54,342	68
6	Hamilton College cost & debt at this university →	$48,577	$53,894	$56,960	30
7	Colgate University cost & debt at this university →	$42,813	$53,358	$60,399	76
8	Brown University cost & debt at this university →	$50,186	$53,108	$62,581	58
9	Southern Methodist University cost & debt at this university →	$34,053	$52,941	$54,488	62
10	Bucknell University cost & debt at this university →	$49,507	$52,941	$57,352	87
11	Georgetown University	$51,297	$52,524	$60,548	272
12	Cornell University cost & debt at this university →	$51,469	$52,107	$40,155	116

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $35,213 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $33,993 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 Political Science sits below the middle by $1,284.

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.

Political Science at other levels

Master's — $46,283 (C)

Scholarships for Political Science students

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

2017 CBS Ph.D. Scholarship in Political Science and Public Man... 20 College of Social Sciences Scholarships at University of Gl... PhD Scholarships in Political Science at Stockholm University... MA Scholarship,Political Science and International Relations a... Harvard South Asia Institute Raghunathan Family PhD Fellowship... UCC Department of Government PhD Studentship for EU and Non-EU...

See all Political Science scholarships →

Study Political Science Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

M.A. in Political Science — Bilkent University Political Science — Bilkent University Africana Studies and Political Science — Northeastern University Biology and Political Science — Northeastern University Criminal Justice and Political Science — Northeastern University Communication and Political Science (Hons) — University of Ottawa

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

Design and Applied Arts — $34,187 Microbiology — $34,207 Community Organization and Advocacy — $34,290 Criminal Justice — $34,420 Environmental & Natural Resources Management — $34,527 Geological — $34,615

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Political Science: the questions people ask

How much do Political Science graduates earn?

The median bachelor's graduate earns $35,213 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 547 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $33,135.