Deciding which college to go to is one of the major and important decisions young adults have to make since it will greatly impact their future. This can also have an impact when they are going to pay their student loans after graduation.
PayScale monitored the median salary and salary growth of more than 1.2 million people for a period of 10 years. Part of the observation included the degrees and colleges these people have attended.
The study showed that business and engineering degrees have the highest starting median salaries as well as strong salary growth. Those who have engineering degrees have a median salary of $110K per year while business majors have $105K per year.
Meanwhile, those who have journalism and communication degrees experience an 85 percent increase in their median salaries in the middle of their career. On the other hand, education has the lowest starting and mid-career median salary.
The PayScale data also showed that health-related degrees have strong starting median salary but experiences slow growth when they reach mid-career.
When it comes to colleges, liberal arts schools and state schools have similar starting median salaries but liberal arts schools have a strong salary growth than state schools. Ivy League universities and engineering schools have the highest starting median salaries. However, engineering schools have strong salary growth during mid-career compared to Ivy League schools.
Moreover, those who have graduated from schools in the Northeast and in California have higher starting salaries than those who graduated from schools in the Midwest, Southern, and Western regions.
Considering these facts and statistics, incoming freshmen need to carefully consider the degrees they will pursue and the colleges they will attend to. They also have to consider the salary growth each degree has during mid-career.
