Want a Fat Paycheck? Attend these State Universities

What colleges and universities produce graduates who go on to earn the highest paychecks?

It’s easy to answer that question if you consult the annual college salary survey that Pay Scale Inc., just released.  The list of schools that produce the graduates with the highest starting salaries is dominated by Ivy League institutions and other elite private schools. Big surprise.

What I found far more interesting, however, is the list of state universities which graduates students with the highest salaries.

Nine out of the top 20 state schools on the list were from California. The No. 1 spot went to the University of California, Berkeley, where the typical starting salary for its newest graduates is $57,100, which isn’t far behind the typical starting salary of a Harvard grad ($60,000).

What’s equally important is the median salary for grads when they reach the mid-point of their career. For Berkeley grads that figure is $112,000.

You can find the salary stats of the top state universities at the Pay Scale website.

Here are the top 20 state universities by salary:

  1. University of California, Berkeley
  2. Colorado School of Mines
  3. Georgia Institute of Technology
  4. New Jersey Institute of Technology
  5. University of California, San Diego
  6. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
  7. University of Illinois
  8. University of California, Santa Barbara,
  9. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  10. University of Virginia
  11. UCLA
  12. San Jose State University
  13. Miami University
  14. University of California, Davis
  15. Texas A&M University
  16. University of Colorado
  17. Rutgers University
  18. University of California, Irvine
  19. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
  20. South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

Further Reading:

Colleges That Produce the Highest Paid Grads

The Best  Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also write a college blog at CBSMoneyWatch.com.



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