The top 10 highest paying majors numbers are out from the National Association of Colleges and Employers and it’s a very interesting mix. The top slots are all very similar to the highest paying majors from the 2009 salary survey with some minor annual increases. The bottom of the list changed a bit. What I continue to find interesting is the strong demand for engineering degrees at the entry level even though many manufacturing companies are leading waves of layoffs given lack of demand during the recession.
Noticeably absent from the top 10 list are any financial, business or accounting related majors that dominated the list in 2008. Overall, the average salary for 2010 graduates is $48,351 which is down 2% last year’s average of $49,353. However, I noticed that when contrasting these highest paying salaries with last year’s list, most of these showed positive increases year over year for 2010 (hence, “in demand”):
Top 10 College Degrees by Highest Starting Salary
1. Petroleum Engineering $86,220
2. Chemical Engineering $65,142
3. Mining & Mineral Engineering $64,552
4. Computer Science $61,205
5. Computer Engineering $60,879
6. Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering $59,074
7. Mechanical Engineering $58,392
8. Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering $57,734
9. Aerospace/Aeronautical/ Astronautical Engineering $57,231
10. Information Sciences & Systems $54,038
Top 10 Degree Analysis
Commodities Engineers:
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see petroleum, chemical, mining and mineral engineering degrees as top spots on the list. Even though Wall Street is suffering and the face of the automotive industry has changed forever, given the growth in emerging markets and the insatiable consumption of energy and materials for their commercial/residential buildouts and economic development, these degrees will likely be in very strong demand for years to come.
Computer Science/Engineering:
One of the few things America still leads the world in in terms of manufacturing and development, is computer technology. Be it Intel or Apple, even though many of our wares are subsequently copied and mass-produced overseas, there is incredible demand for cutting edge launches out of the US. Additionally, the knowledge economy is very much demanding programmers and thinkers from top colleges as well. Google is still known as a top employer of choice and even the US government is heavy into data analysis in the post 9/11 world for everything from tracking terrorists to facial recognition technology to developing algorithms to detect suspicious financial activities.
Engineering in General:
Why do Engineering degrees comprise such a large portion of the top slots year after year? It’s basic supply and demand. There are too few engineering graduates each year to meet the demand in the private sector. Contrast that with say, a Communications major (nothing against them, there just seem to be more of these graduates out there than jobs beckoning). Even though it’s a tough job market right now, engineers coming out of good schools have always been able to practically write their own ticket if they had the right skill set, grades, a decent internship and are open to relocating to score an entry-level position at one of the best places to work.
I’m a Chemical Engineer – Starting Salary Isn’t Everything:
The irony in these surveys and how salary levels pan out further into a career are that the engineering degrees tend to be very much in demand in the early years of a career, but the pay increases roughly with overall wage inflation. However, for a business major or any major for that matter, that either goes directly into the Financial industry or snags an MBA along the way and does so, the salaries 10 years later are off the chart.
Consider my experience. I lived in a pretty crazy environment in college. I was 1 studying engineer in a house of another 20 guys studying everything from history and economics to anthropology and accounting. Most of them pretty much did the bare minimum scholastically and the absolute maximum from a party/having fun standpoint. I got out one or two nights a week, but it was a constant party of most of these guys. Funny thing is, even with mediocre grades, many of them ended up on Wall Street or other financial firms in the area and now make double to triple what I make. Why? Wall Street pay skyrocketed for those who stayed in the industry. How’d they get into these roles? Connections.
The nice thing about an engineering degree is that it’s widely recognized as a highly adaptive, “capable” major. For instance, rather than jumping into chemical plants, many of my graduating class went to work as actuaries (even higher starting salary), Wall Street, medical schools and other seemingly unrelated destinations. Once in industry, as unfair as it may seem, chemical engineers especially, tended to command higher starting salaries for the same given job title and raises. Why? If the going rate for a bio major is $50K and a chemical engineer is $65K and rising each year, in order to retain those chemical engineers, a company has to make sure they’re keeping up with the rest of the job market.
On the theme of an adaptive/diverse background, a useful combo, and one that I pursued personally, is the engineer/MBA combo. Basically, I cut my teeth in manufacturing and spent a few years pursuing an MBA at night and then transitioned into a broader strategic/business role. Not only has the role brought me a higher income via promotions, but the diverse background is well-suited to multiple roles now. Given the need, I could work in any one of multiple manufacturing, supply chain, procurement or project management roles.
So, it’s a toss-up. Going after the Wall Street career is no longer a guarantee to either a) even get in or b) lifetime employment or c) high pay. Things are changing. ETFs are overtaking mutual funds so there’s that many fewer fund managers and sales reps. The government will play an ever-increasing role in the regulation and suppression of growth of large firms to prevent another “too big to fail” scenario. some of the regulations that will inevitably be enacted may permanently curtail the profit growth and career potential in the financial industry.
Six-Figure Jobs
Six Figure Jobs are getting to be harder to come by in the current economic environment. As the supply-demand equation has switched from a shortage of qualified workers and an abundance of firms looking to talent to many talented, experienced employees looking for work, it’s not quite the same as we saw during the boom years. That being said, there are new services and resources that didn’t exist previously. A wonderful resource that I enjoy is The Ladders. If you’re highly qualified and used to earn upwards of six figures, this service can greatly hone your search and it also limits the candidate pool to those with recent six-figure salaries.
Related posts:
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- It’s 2010! Get Off Your Butt and Do Something Quick and Easy to Improve Your Finances!
- Working Long Hours – Is it Worth it?
- Best Places to Work: Surprising Survey Results and Analysis
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I agree with the MBA addition. It’s an expensive degree to get but the rewards are pretty quick. I had an ROI of three years on mine. That’s AWESOME.
I would say though, it’s not all about salary. In the late ’90s everyone was going into computer science because of the high pay and high demand. A lot of them were miserable. Comp Sci takes a certain kind of person with a certain personality and love for computers. If you don’t have it, you will be miserable in computer science.
I’m sure this applies equally well to the other majors you listed. The result is that you should focus on the highest paying job that includes something you love to do. As a PF blogger, I am money-focused, but money isn’t everything. It’s only one means to an end… and that end should be happiness. You can’t be happy in a job you hate, so go for something you enjoy.
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Darwin Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
@Mike Lutter, True, true. I’ve stopped returning headhunter calls and checking stuff out. I have too much going on in my personal life and my job’s good now, to worry about chasing a raise. If I weren’t please with my current predicament, I’d probably go for something paying more, but I have my hands full now with 3 kids 5 and under, a challenging job, a blog, etc. Now’s the time to be enjoying life! We’d rather spend a little less and enjoy life than keep chasing new opportunities and having our 30s and 40s flash before our eyes.
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Tom McGwerin Reply:
July 1st, 2010 at 4:55 pm
They took my job!
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Neat post…while salary isn’t everything it certainly is a Big Factor in career choice. Good job.
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I can’t think of a more lucrative 2 year degree (yes, two year) than nursing.
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Darwin Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
@Brian, Hi Brian, yes there’s been a purported nursing shortage for years now and salaries have been pretty high. Oddly though, BusinessWeek recently ran a story that there’s now an overabundance of nursing students that can’t find jobs because so many people flocked into the profession coupled with hospitals cutting back due to the recession and municipal budgets underwater. I figure long-term, still a good ROI, especially if it’s a profession you like. Just may be tight near term.
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I am an engineer, but most of my neighbors and friends are in sales and marketing. I think the good ones make a lot more than engineers since they can really make a huge difference.
We Engineers think that our work can yield significant differences too; but it’s harder to reward because it’s harder to measure the benefit of what we do; since our benefits are measured in longer durations of time.
tim
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This is a good post for 4 year degrees; however the picture changes dynamically for post-undergraduate majors. Health care begins to dominate.
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Interesting list and interesting to read Darwin’s other posts on his undergrad years. I went to a small, but well ranked, Engineering school. I started in one of the comparatively few “quasi-engineering” majors (Biotech) that were offered at the time and ended up graduating with a BS in MIS (another name for #10 on the list) as that was the “hot” major at the time. I’m now a PM. About half the guys I went to school with are PM’s of some kind now. The rest are everything from engineers to finance to sales. Which is further evidence that Engineering is viewed as a “versatile” major.
To anyone who is considering going into ANY major simply because it pays well I would caution you to be sure that the core elements of your degree fall into disciplines you like, or at least have in an interest in. Look, Thermodynamics and DiffEQ’s are gonna suck no matter what but if you have a strong interest in the major you’ll muscle through the hard courses.
I watched guys in my house who were chem eng, Electrical and Electrical-Computer (I would say those 3 majors are a dead heat for hardest undergrad majors in existence) as well as the Mech Eng and Civils (the “easy” engineering majors, haha) go through the descending circles of engineering hell and if you don’t like engineering your life will be a living breathing hell for 4 years. I had 3 good friends drop out (well, transfer actually) and they were all brilliant but hated engineering and got into it for financial reasons.
If you do like engineering I would consider going to a smaller engineering school rather than a massive university (unless you get into an Ivy or similiar caliber college of course) – I can’t imagine being an engineering major in a public university and hanging with dudes who had a double-major in Basket-weaving and BeerPong. The jealousy would have killed me. Darwin and other engineers on this blog may back me up on this. I was in a frat as well with the significant difference that 80% of the guys in the house were Engineering majors. The rest were in – still difficult – science majors. During exam weeks you could hear crickets chirping in the house.
Engineering schools are not party schools so they may seem less attractive when comparing them to universities but the reality is that you won’t be doing the same partying anyway. So go to a smaller polytechnic and join a frat where they have files of every test ever taken by every proffessor on campus. Haha. I kid but in all seriousness this was a massive asset.
I would agree with Mike Lutter on Comp Sci. If you are a CS person you already know it. I took most of the same programming courses as the CS guys and can say they are honestly a different species. This is neither good or bad. But if you’re not of a similiar breed you’ll hate it.
And Kevin is right. The post-bac high pay landscape is dominated by medical careers. If you’re already an engineering major you might consider taking the 8 core classes you need to get into med careers. (2Bios, 2 physics, 2 Chems, 2 Organic chems (No fun those orgos…no sir). You’ll have the math requirements already and you’ll leave the door open to all things medical.
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Although economics isn’t in the top 10 for starting salaries, according to payscale.com’s survey, it has the 5th highest mid-career salary, beating out all the business majors and many of the engineering and science majors. Also, an economics and math focus in undergrad will set you up very nicely for later grabbing a finance PHD which pays an insane amount of money for a teaching position.
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