Master's · earnings grade

Is a Psychology degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $41,681 two years after finishing, more than 21% of master's majors. Measured across 402 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

The verdict on the money

Financially it is a slower start than most majors at this level — worth planning your borrowing around.

Median earnings $41,681 2 years after finishing · per graduate

Typical range $38,289–$48,265 middle half of US programmes

Over no degree +$2,161 vs $39,520 high-school median

Graduates a year 6,941 402 programmes

Where a Psychology 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	George Mason University cost & debt at this university →	$66,608	$73,112	$68,279	77
2	Xavier University cost & debt at this university →	not published	$66,915	not published	22
3	California State University-Fresno cost & debt at this university →	$67,245	$66,541	$77,418	20
4	The University of Tennessee-Chattanooga cost & debt at this university →	$40,600	$63,005	$73,667	4
5	Middle Tennessee State University cost & debt at this university →	$49,120	$59,485	$88,221	48
6	Western Michigan University cost & debt at this university →	not published	$58,221	not published	4
7	Florida State University cost & debt at this university →	$52,945	$57,995	$65,740	40
8	University of Nevada-Reno cost & debt at this university →	not published	$57,770	$75,701	—
9	Western New England University cost & debt at this university →	not published	$55,964	not published	—
10	Claremont Graduate University	$42,329	$55,964	$63,452	1
11	Missouri State University-Springfield	not published	$55,286	not published	—
12	University of Massachusetts-Lowell cost & debt at this university →	$49,526	$54,713	not published	11

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $41,681 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $42,682 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 master's major in this dataset reports $52,837, so Psychology sits below the middle by $11,156.

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.

Psychology at other levels

Bachelor's — $29,141 (F)

Scholarships for Psychology students

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

Netherlands Amsterdam Excellence Scholarship PhD Studentships in Psychology at University of Central Lancas... Vice Chancellor’s PhD Studentships in Psychology at Roehampton... Fee-waiver Scholarships for International Students at Universi... Doctoral Research Fellowship in Literature, Cognition and Emot... IoPPN Dean’s Master Scholarships for UK/EU and International S...

See all Psychology scholarships →

Study Psychology Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

Environmental Psychology — Lund University Psychology with Specialisation in Health Psych... — Umeå University Psychology — Bilkent University Psychology — Bilkent University Psychology — Bilkent University Counselling Psychology — University of Toronto

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

Physiology — $43,054 Library Science and Administration — $43,426 Student Counseling — $43,798 Theological and Ministerial Studies — $44,189 Research and Experimental Psychology — $44,194 Clinical, Counseling — $44,468

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Psychology: the questions people ask

How much do Psychology graduates earn?

The median master's graduate earns $41,681 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 82 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $42,820.