College Degrees That Command the Highest Salaries

PayScale, the creator of the world's largest compensation database, looked at the starting pay for millions of professionals and sorted the information by college major.
Management Information Systems (MIS)
Median starting pay: $56,300
Median mid-career pay: $95,500

1

Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET)

Median starting pay: $56,600
Median mid-career pay: $85,400

2

Nursing
Median starting pay: $56,900
Median mid-career pay: $73,600

3

Business and Information Technology
Median starting pay: $56,900
Median mid-career pay: $99,100

4

Architectual Engineering
Median starting pay: $57,000
Median mid-career pay: $90,400

5

Physics
Median starting pay: $57,200
Median mid-career pay: $105,100

6

Electrical Engineering Technology
Median starting pay: $58,900
Median mid-career pay: $88,200

7

Biomedical Engineering
Median starting pay: $59,600
Median mid-career pay: $92,200

8

Business Information Systems
Median starting pay: $59,800
Median mid-career pay: $85,100

9

Actuarial Mathematics
Median starting pay: $60,800
Median mid-career pay: $119,600

10

Computer Science
Median starting pay: $61,600
Median mid-career pay: $103,600

11

Software Engineering
Median starting pay: $61,700
Median mid-career pay: $99,800

12

Industrial Engineering
Median starting pay: $61,900
Median mid-career pay: $97,200

13

Mechanical Engineering
Median starting pay: $62,100
Median mid-career pay: $101,600

14

Computer Science and Mathematics
Median starting salary: $63,200
Median mid-career pay: $101,400

15

Materials Science and Engineering
Median starting pay: $64,000
Median mid-career pay: $105,100

16

Electronics and Communcations Engineering
Median starting pay: $64,100
Median mid-career pay: $113,200

17

Aerospace Engineering
Median starting pay: $64,700
Median mid-career pay: $107,900

18

Electrical Engineering
Median starting pay: $65,900
Median mid-career pay: $107,900

19

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Median starting pay: $66,500

20

Computer Science and Engineering
Median starting pay: $66,700
Median mid-career pay: $112,600

21

Nuclear Engineering
Median starting pay: $67,000
Median mid-career pay: $118,800

22

Computer Engineering
Median starting pay: $67,300
Median mid-career pay: $108,600

23

Chemical Engineering
Median starting pay: $69,600
Median mid-career pay: $116,700

24

Petroleum Engineering
Median starting pay: $102,300
Median mid-career pay: $176,300

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