Bible/Biblical Studies

86
Schools
Master's
Credential Level
$59,920
National Avg Earnings

What the IPEDS & College Scorecard Data Shows for Bible/Biblical Studies

Bible/Biblical Studies is tracked across 86 U.S. postsecondary institutions in the College Scorecard field-of-study file, which links CIP code classifications from IPEDS to Treasury earnings records. This profile covers the master's credential level specifically, because the Department of Education reports program-level outcomes separately for associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral awards. The CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs) taxonomy lets analysts roll up specialties into broader families, which is why earnings medians across schools can be compared on a common basis.

Across all reporting institutions, the mean of school-level medians is $59,920, calculated from 4 schools with published earnings data. The top-reporting institution in this program is Moody Bible Institute at $66,956. These numbers reflect Treasury-derived wages, deferred compensation, and positive self-employment earnings four years after completion for federally aided completers who were working and not enrolled.

Variation across schools matters more than a single national figure. Completer counts and earnings cohort counts are distinct source fields, so the displayed completer count should not be assumed to be the earnings denominator. PlainCollege's debt-to-earnings ratio divides median federal debt by annual median earnings as a descriptive comparison; it is not the Department's formal gainful-employment test. Use the school-by-school table to compare reported outcomes while accounting for cohort size, suppression, program mix, and location.

Liberty University accounts for 31.1% of all Bible/Biblical Studies master's credential graduates

That is an overwhelming concentration — well above the 5% national median for largest-entity share, leaving the rest of Bible/Biblical Studies a distant remainder. That school produced 78 graduates in the most recent cohort, anchoring a meaningful slice of national supply for this field. Liberty University's programmatic and budget decisions functionally set policy for the affected population, since no other entity here comes close to matching its weight.

Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard

Bible/Biblical Studies debt-to-earnings ratio is 0.40 — low (typically associated with graduates earn substantially more than they borrowed, which is the College Scorecard standard signal for affordability, a ratio under 0.5 means a year of post-completion earnings would clear half the federal-loan principal)

debt-to-earnings ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: this ratio uses federal loan principal, not all education debt, private loans, parent PLUS loans not in the borrower’s name, and institutional debt are excluded Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.

Source: College Scorecard Field of Study file

Top Schools for This Program

School Name State Awards (latest year) Median Earnings (4 yrs after completion) Median Debt
Moody Bible Institute IL 42 $66,956 $18,000
Grand Canyon University AZ - $63,088 -
Biola University CA 28 $56,442 $29,727
Denver Seminary CO 44 $53,194 -
Colorado Christian University CO 31 - $35,980
Luther Rice College & Seminary GA 15 $53,358 at 2 yrs -
Grace College and Theological Seminary IN 3 $38,289 at 2 yrs -
Cedarville University OH 10 $40,536 at 1 yr -
Liberty University VA 78 $29,141 at 2 yrs $29,947

Awards and earnings come from different reference periods, so they are not a count and an average of the same people. Awards is the number of credentials the school reported for the latest IPEDS year; median earnings is measured four years after completion, for a separate pooled cohort of earlier graduates. A school can therefore report zero awards in the latest year and still have earnings on record. The earnings figure is not the awards figure’s average, and the awards count is not the earnings sample size. Schools are ranked on the four-year earnings figure only, so every row is compared on the same basis.

Compare beyond the CIP family

Nationwide peers by school count & four-year earnings

Cross-field programs at the same credential level nearest Bible/Biblical Studies on school-count breadth (86 schools) and mean four-year median earnings ($59,920). Peers exclude the same two-digit CIP family so neighborhoods are not CIP-containment siblings. School-count peers include Foods, Nutrition, and Related Services, Homeland Security, Systems Engineering. Earnings peers include Human Services, General, Human Development, Family Studies, and Related Services, Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods. Neighborhoods are forced disjoint so each axis surfaces a different set of programs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do Bible/Biblical Studies graduates earn? ▼
Bible/Biblical Studies graduates earn $59,920 on average four years after completion, across the 4 of 86 schools that report earnings for this program.
Which school's Bible/Biblical Studies graduates earn the most? ▼
Moody Bible Institute has the highest reported median earnings for Bible/Biblical Studies graduates at $66,956, measured four years after completion in College Scorecard data. This reflects what graduates went on to earn, which depends heavily on who the school admits and which employers recruit there. It is not a figure the school pays.
What credential do you get in Bible/Biblical Studies? ▼
Bible/Biblical Studies programs typically award a Master's credential. Earnings vary by school and credential level.

About This Data

Earnings data comes from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard Field of Study file retrieved in March 2026. The program metric displayed here represents federally aided completers who were working and not enrolled four years after credential completion, using Treasury-derived records published through the Scorecard. Completer counts and debt figures come from the same field-of-study snapshot; the Department refreshes components on schedules documented in its changelog, not one fixed annual date.

Earnings data sourced from IRS records via the U.S. Treasury–Department of Education matching protocol used by the College Scorecard.