The 20 highest paying bachelor degrees after graduation
Source: Fabian Blank/ Unsplash

With tuition fees becoming ever-more expensive, you’ll want to get bang for your buck in terms of what you choose to study.

The College Salary Report 2017-2018 from Payscale demonstrates the future earning potential of various university courses based upon surveys of some 2.3 million graduates across 2,700 colleges and universities.

“In today’s job market, having a bachelor’s degree is nearly a necessity to land a rewarding, well-paying job with any possibility for advancement; a bachelor’s degree is almost essential for entry into most professional careers,” said Payscale.

“In certain lines of work, like teaching and engineering, you cannot enter the field without holding at least a bachelor’s degree.”

Courses in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields dominated the top 20 on Payscale’s list, with the first non-STEM course of Government appearing at number 36 followed, interestingly, by Japanese Language in 39th place.

Here are the best 20 degrees for those shooting for high salaries.

Rank Major Early Career Pay Mid-Career Pay
1 Petroleum Engineering $94,600 $175,500
2 Actuarial Mathematics $56,400 $131,700
3 Actuarial Science $61,200 $130,800
4 Nuclear Engineering $69,000 $127,500
5 Chemical Engineering $70,300 $124,500
6 Marine Engineering $73,900 $123,200
7 Economics and Mathematics $60,000 $122,900
8 Geophysics $54,100 $122,200
9 Cognitive Science $54,000 $121,900
10 Electrical Power Engineering $68,600 $119,100
11 Aeronautical Engineering $65,300 $118,800
11 Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) $69,000 $118,800
13 Computer Systems Engineering $72,000 $118,000
14 Bioengineering $61,600 $116,800
14 Computer Science (CS) & Engineering $70,900 $116,800
16 Computer Engineering (CE) $70,300 $116,000
17 Electrical Engineering (EE) $67,800 $114,800
18 Computer Science (CS) & Mathematics $62,800 $114,400
18 Industrial & Systems Engineering $65,700 $114,400
20 Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering $68,200 $113,800

 

Liked this? Then you’ll love…

Which graduate degrees leave debt that is the hardest to pay off?

Will that first salary define your career?