Biomedical/Medical Engineering

Compiled by PlainCollege , College outcomes data analysis

197

Schools

Bachelor's

Credential Level

$94,556

National Avg Earnings

What the IPEDS & College Scorecard Data Shows for Biomedical/Medical Engineering

Biomedical/Medical Engineering is tracked across 197 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 bachelor'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 $94,556, calculated from 118 schools with published earnings data. The earnings distribution stretches from $67,246 at the low end to $126,419 at the top, with a 25th-75th percentile band between $88,272 and $100,182 around a median of $94,168. The top-reporting institution in this program is University of Pennsylvania at $126,419. 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.

Biomedical/Medical Engineering bachelor's credential median debt varies 3.0× across entities

Biomedical/Medical Engineering bachelor's credential median debt ranges from $11,207 (lowest) to $33,384 (highest), a spread of $22,177. That spread reflects typical institutional cost differences, public in-state, public out-of-state, and private school financing models produce predictable spreads. Median debt counts only those students who borrowed federal loans, students who paid out-of-pocket or received institutional grants are excluded from the borrower median, which can flatter low-debt schools.

Source: College Scorecard Field of Study file; IPEDS financial aid data Accessed 2026-08-01

Biomedical/Medical Engineering debt-to-earnings ratio is 0.24 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)

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 Values this far below typical often correlate with unusually small scale or population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se — worth checking whether the underlying denominator is itself an outlier.

Source: College Scorecard Field of Study file Accessed 2026-08-01

Earnings Distribution

Min

$67,246

25th %ile

$88,272

Median

$94,168

75th %ile

$100,182

Max

$126,419

$67,246 $126,419

Top Schools for This Program

School Name	State	Awards (latest year)	Median Earnings (4 yrs after completion)	Median Debt
University of Pennsylvania	PA	53	$126,419	$15,593
Rice University	TX	34	$121,099	-
Vanderbilt University	TN	50	$116,662	$15,000
University of California-Los Angeles	CA	64	$116,525	$14,500
Johns Hopkins University	MD	100	$114,673	$11,207
Santa Clara University	CA	21	$114,426	$20,500
Tulane University of Louisiana	LA	32	$112,914	$22,500
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	MA	47	$111,738	$13,000
University of California-Berkeley	CA	94	$110,597	$14,896
Carnegie Mellon University	PA	65	$109,648	-
University of Virginia-Main Campus	VA	127	$109,551	$18,400
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo	CA	104	$109,232	$20,500
California State University-Long Beach	CA	40	$106,540	$15,500
Lehigh University	PA	53	$106,260	$26,000
Wayne State University	MI	18	$106,048	$19,395
Duke University	NC	67	$105,921	$13,894
University of Southern California	CA	56	$105,415	$13,750
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	NY	70	$103,306	$26,000
Northwestern University	IL	43	$102,994	$16,833
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	GA	278	$102,755	$21,375
The University of Texas at Austin	TX	118	$102,544	$21,071
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	MI	103	$102,342	$18,969
Drexel University	PA	100	$101,362	$29,666
University of Delaware	DE	72	$101,175	$25,752
Temple University	PA	60	$101,101	$27,000
University of Washington-Seattle Campus	WA	91	$100,930	$14,000
George Washington University	DC	35	$100,601	$23,000
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus	PA	89	$100,416	$24,164
Oregon State University	OR	59	$100,182	$21,500
Oregon State University-Cascades Campus	OR	2	$100,182	$21,500
Stevens Institute of Technology	NJ	65	$99,842	$27,000
University of Wisconsin-Madison	WI	106	$99,762	$20,492
Wentworth Institute of Technology	MA	45	$99,617	$27,000
Syracuse University	NY	29	$99,521	$27,000
Boston University	MA	126	$99,024	$25,500
University of Miami	FL	62	$98,997	$18,425
University of California-San Diego	CA	92	$98,687	$20,000
University of California-Santa Cruz	CA	11	$98,567	$23,000
University of California-Davis	CA	107	$98,504	$15,979
North Carolina State University at Raleigh	NC	127	$98,129	$19,872
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	NC	127	$97,992	$15,000
University of South Carolina-Columbia	SC	47	$97,927	$23,000
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	IL	80	$97,926	$16,850
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	MN	81	$97,611	$21,300
University of California-Irvine	CA	156	$96,874	$16,750
University of Rhode Island	RI	30	$96,532	$26,234
University of Utah	UT	77	$96,353	$19,476
University of Rochester	NY	60	$95,957	$20,500
Marquette University	WI	80	$95,728	$26,975
CUNY City College	NY	35	$95,685	-
University of Connecticut	CT	74	$95,682	$25,000
University of Connecticut-Waterbury Campus	CT	0	$95,682	$25,000
University of Connecticut-Avery Point	CT	0	$95,682	$25,000
University of Connecticut-Stamford	CT	0	$95,682	$25,000
University of Connecticut-Hartford Campus	CT	0	$95,682	$25,000
University of Arizona	AZ	46	$95,625	$19,000
Colorado School of Mines	CO	0	$95,142	$23,370
Binghamton University	NY	57	$94,859	$19,500
Case Western Reserve University	OH	86	$94,168	$23,250
Rochester Institute of Technology	NY	45	$94,103	$28,308
Clemson University	SC	115	$93,705	$21,375
George Mason University	VA	42	$93,533	$23,594
Purdue University-Main Campus	IN	112	$93,434	$19,500
Texas A&M University-College Station	TX	145	$93,305	$19,000
Milwaukee School of Engineering	WI	29	$93,229	$27,000
University of New Hampshire-Main Campus	NH	19	$92,984	$25,000
Arizona State University Campus Immersion	AZ	135	$92,974	$21,000
Worcester Polytechnic Institute	MA	132	$92,806	$27,000
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth	MA	37	$91,805	$27,000
Florida Gulf Coast University	FL	20	$91,676	$17,779
Brown University	RI	23	$91,674	-
North Carolina A & T State University	NC	34	$91,235	$27,000
University of Cincinnati-Main Campus	OH	63	$90,897	$20,625
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology	IN	20	$90,484	$26,441
University of Alabama at Birmingham	AL	51	$90,415	$22,676
Ohio State University-Main Campus	OH	79	$90,065	$23,125
University of California-Riverside	CA	67	$90,041	$19,954
Rutgers University-New Brunswick	NJ	103	$89,850	$23,745
Widener University	PA	11	$89,794	$27,000
Stony Brook University	NY	50	$89,560	$24,452
Miami University-Oxford	OH	31	$89,052	$27,000
University of California-Merced	CA	37	$88,795	$20,816
Florida International University	FL	82	$88,656	$19,500
University of North Texas	TX	47	$88,484	$22,700
Indiana University-Indianapolis	IN	36	$88,435	$19,959
New Jersey Institute of Technology	NJ	93	$88,396	$21,500
Illinois Institute of Technology	IL	34	$88,378	$27,000
University of Memphis	TN	49	$88,279	$25,250
Duquesne University	PA	30	$88,272	$27,000
Florida Institute of Technology	FL	25	$88,120	$27,000
University of Florida	FL	105	$88,078	$21,006
Western New England University	MA	28	$87,838	$27,000
The University of Texas at Dallas	TX	99	$87,420	$18,625
University of Illinois Chicago	IL	84	$87,393	$21,250
University of Iowa	IA	92	$86,894	$27,000
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus	PA	87	$86,893	$27,000
Saint Louis University	MO	48	$86,844	$27,000
Virginia Commonwealth University	VA	54	$86,295	$22,250
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus	CO	32	$86,190	$26,840
Union College	NY	20	$86,182	$27,000

Earnings trajectory. For the 113 schools reporting both horizons, median earnings are 71% higher four years after completion than one year after. That is the same graduates measured twice, not two different groups, so it describes how pay develops early in the career rather than a difference between schools. A school missing from this count reports only one horizon.

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 Biomedical/Medical Engineering on school-count breadth (197 schools) and mean four-year median earnings ($94,556). Peers exclude the same two-digit CIP family so neighborhoods are not CIP-containment siblings. School-count peers include Human Services, General, Statistics, Clinical, Counseling and Applied Psychology. Earnings peers include Applied Mathematics, Construction Management, Engineering-Related Fields. Neighborhoods are forced disjoint so each axis surfaces a different set of programs.

Similar school count

Nearest programs (≥50 schools) by absolute school-count breadth, outside this CIP family.

Similar four-year earnings

Nearest programs by mean four-year median earnings (deduped against the school-count neighborhood).

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do Biomedical/Medical Engineering graduates earn? ▼

Biomedical/Medical Engineering graduates earn $94,556 on average four years after completion, across the 118 of 197 schools that report earnings for this program. Earnings range from $67,246 to $126,419 depending on the institution.

Which school's Biomedical/Medical Engineering graduates earn the most? ▼

University of Pennsylvania has the highest reported median earnings for Biomedical/Medical Engineering graduates at $126,419, 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 Biomedical/Medical Engineering? ▼

Biomedical/Medical Engineering programs typically award a Bachelor's credential. Earnings vary by school and credential level.

Top Schools for Biomedical/Medical Engineering

Closest schools offering this program – compare earnings side by side

University of Pennsylvania

$126,419 median

Rice University

$121,099 median

Vanderbilt University

$116,662 median

University of California-Los Angeles

$116,525 median

Johns Hopkins University

$114,673 median

Compare University of Pennsylvania vs Rice University →

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.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.