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:
- University of California, Berkeley
- Colorado School of Mines
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- New Jersey Institute of Technology
- University of California, San Diego
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- University of Illinois
- University of California, Santa Barbara,
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- University of Virginia
- UCLA
- San Jose State University
- Miami University
- University of California, Davis
- Texas A&M University
- University of Colorado
- Rutgers University
- University of California, Irvine
- California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
- 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.