The choice of major moves a student's lifetime earnings more than almost any other college decision, and the spread is wider than most applicants assume. Ranked by median earnings four years after graduation, the 38 fields of study run from roughly $94,000 at the top to roughly $37,000 at the bottom. That is a two-and-a-half-fold gap between the highest-earning major and the lowest, larger than the gap between most pairs of colleges. The fields that lead are technical and engineering-adjacent. The fields that trail are the performing arts, theology, and library science. And projected job growth, the other number students are told to weigh, tracks earnings only loosely.
What Is the Highest-Paying College Major
Engineering technology, at a median of $93,843 four years after graduation, just ahead of computer science and the construction trades. The top of the table is almost entirely technical and engineering-adjacent. The bottom is library science at $36,949, the performing arts, and theology. Top to bottom, the spread is two and a half to one, wider than the gap between most pairs of colleges.
The Full Ranking
All 38 majors by median earnings four years after graduation, with the BLS-projected 10-year job growth for the field alongside.
| Major | Median earnings | Job growth |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Tech | $93,843 | +1.9% |
| Computer Science | $92,374 | +10.0% |
| Construction | $90,924 | +4.7% |
| Engineering | $86,517 | +4.0% |
| Transportation | $85,825 | +2.7% |
| Mechanics & Repair | $80,809 | +3.5% |
| Military Tech | $75,390 | +2.3% |
| Mathematics | $69,562 | +10.5% |
| Science Tech | $68,416 | -0.2% |
| Business | $68,257 | +4.7% |
| Architecture | $66,874 | +3.1% |
| Physical Sciences | $65,120 | +4.0% |
| Social Sciences | $63,293 | +3.6% |
| Legal Studies | $61,959 | +2.5% |
| Health | $61,296 | +9.0% |
| Natural Resources | $58,784 | +2.5% |
| Biology | $57,214 | +4.4% |
| Communication | $56,359 | +2.2% |
| Interdisciplinary Studies | $55,693 | +5.9% |
| Criminal Justice | $55,378 | +3.0% |
| Recreation & Fitness | $54,562 | +6.2% |
| Philosophy & Religion | $54,455 | +1.4% |
| Liberal Arts | $53,072 | +1.8% |
| Public Administration | $51,790 | +4.8% |
| Cultural Studies | $51,710 | +2.4% |
| Psychology | $50,706 | +4.7% |
| History | $50,680 | +3.5% |
| Education | $50,499 | +0.4% |
| Languages | $49,984 | +0.4% |
| Agriculture | $49,634 | +3.9% |
| English | $48,590 | +1.4% |
| Family & Consumer Sciences | $48,460 | +2.2% |
| Personal Services | $47,668 | +5.1% |
| Precision Production | $47,488 | -7.4% |
| Communications Tech | $44,889 | -5.7% |
| Theology | $44,533 | +1.9% |
| Visual & Performing Arts | $41,367 | +2.5% |
| Library Science | $36,949 | +2.8% |
The top field out-pays the bottom by 2.5 to 1
Median earnings four years after graduation, selected fields across the range
What the Order Reveals
Two things stand out. The first is that applied and technical fields beat their pure-science and humanities counterparts, and the gap is not small. Engineering technology, the hands-on cousin of engineering, actually edges general engineering on median earnings, $93,843 to $86,517. That ordering surprises people who assume the more theoretical degree pays more. It does not, at least not at the four-year median, because the applied degree maps more directly onto a paying job.
The second is that pay and projected growth run on separate tracks. The two fastest-growing majors in the table, mathematics and computer science, sit near the top on earnings too, which is the combination students hope for. But construction earns $90,924 with only moderate growth, while health earns a middling $61,296 despite one of the strongest growth rates in the set. Two fields, precision production and communications technology, are projected to shrink outright even though their earnings are mid-pack. A high salary today and a growing job market are different bets, and the table shows they only sometimes coincide.
Group the 38 fields into earnings bands and the shape of the table becomes clear: only six break $80,000, and the largest cluster sits in the $50,000s, where a third of all majors land within a $10,000 window.
How We Measured This
Median earnings are the four-year median for the field, aggregated from program-level College Scorecard data across the colleges that award each major. Job growth is the Bureau of Labor Statistics 10-year employment projection mapped to the field through the standard occupational crosswalk. Both figures sit on each field's profile page. The 38 categories follow the federal two-digit classification of instructional programs, the same taxonomy the government uses. Full method on the methodology and data sources pages.
What the Numbers Do Not Say
A single median hides an enormous range inside each major. The earnings band within a field, from the 25th to the 75th percentile, is often wider than the gap between two adjacent majors in this table, so a strong graduate in a mid-ranked field can out-earn a weak one in a top-ranked field. The four-year figure also catches graduates early, before fields with steep later trajectories, such as the physical sciences feeding into advanced degrees, have separated. The ranking compares fields at one moment in one way. It is the start of the analysis, not the end.
What This Means for Students
The takeaway is not to chase the top of the list. It is to know where a field sits before you commit, and to weigh earnings against growth and against fit rather than assuming they move together. If a mid-table field is the one you want, you can still raise the financial return by controlling the other lever, cost, which is why the highest-earning major at the cheapest credible school often beats a top-earning major at an expensive one. To see which careers a field leads to and what they pay, the Career Path Explorer maps majors to occupations, and the ROI Calculator puts the earnings against the cost of getting there. It helps to know that selectivity barely moves earnings, so the field matters far more than the prestige of the school teaching it.
What This Means for Career-Changers
If you are retraining, the field you pick sets your earnings ceiling more than the credential that gets you there. Applied and technical fields sit at the top of this table precisely because they map directly onto a paying job, which also makes them the fastest to turn a new credential into income. Growth matters more for you than for an 18-year-old, because you are entering the market now: a shrinking field is a harder place to land that first role regardless of its median pay. Run a target field through the Career Path Explorer to see the specific occupations and wages on the other side, then check the best-value colleges that teach it before committing time and tuition to the switch.
