Author: Karsten Strauss
The world of STEM (that’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) gets high marks this year on a ranking of the college majors that lead to the highest starting salaries. Chemical, computer and electrical engineering bachelors’ degree students, it would seem, are likely to walk into the most high-paying positions when they receive their diplomas and strut into the workforce.
This according to a report from Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute (CERI), which each year releases data on starting salary information from thousands of employers across the country. We took CERI’s findings on which degrees command the highest starting pay and built a gallery of the top 20 highest-paying degrees. Check it out below!
In compiling this year’s results, CERI – headed by college labor market expert, Phil Gardner – gathered information from more than 4,730 employers, accessed through nearly 200 career service centers throughout the country. The study includes information from respondents recruiting talent for full-time positions, internships, and co-ops.
Chemical engineering degrees, it turns out, yields the highest starting salaries for recent grads. By the numbers, annual pay for those who graduate with such a degree ranges from $34,850 to $100,600, averaging around $63,389.
Computer engineering students come in second place, averaging around $63,313 in annual starting pay, followed by electrical engineering at $61,173.
Last year electrical engineering held the top-spot, with $57,000 a year, according to CERI, followed by computer engineering and mechanical engineering. Meanwhile, chemical engineering was in sixth place.
The report is good news for students pursuing the highest paying majors. But what of the bottom of CERI’s list of salaries by degree? The three lowest paying majors, the organization reports are Psychology ($36,327), Public Relations ($36,235) and Advertising ($35,733).
Among Masters Degrees, Engineering majors attracted the highest salaries at more than $68,000, followed by Computer Science & IT ($67,735), and MBAs ($62,345).
PhD diplomas in Engineering & Computer Science bring in the highest starting pay at $76,702, followed by Physical & Biological Sciences ($63,809) and Business ($62,454).
According to CERI’s survey, 61% of employers intend to keep salaries at the same level as last year, while about 39% of employers will increase starting salaries by 2% to 5%. Fifteen percent of employers will increase starting salaries by more than 10%.
The number of employers offering salary increases to new grads (39%) is a 4.7% uptick over last year and part of a trend of incremental increases since the onset of the recession in 2008 and 2009. We’ve yet to get back to pre-recession figures, though. Back in 2008, 53% of employers reported that they intended to up annual pay for starting employees.
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Posted By: Cheer Leader
Tuesday, July 12th 2016 at 3:41PM
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