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The 20 highest paying bachelor degrees after graduation
01 May 2018
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 |
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