Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies

101
Schools
Master's
Credential Level
$69,153
National Avg Earnings

What the IPEDS & College Scorecard Data Shows for Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies

Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies is tracked across 101 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 $69,153, calculated from 6 schools with published earnings data. The earnings distribution stretches from $54,322 at the low end to $82,579 at the top, with a 25th-75th percentile band between $63,673 and $75,709 around a median of $69,701. The top-reporting institution in this program is Southeastern Oklahoma State University at $82,579. 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.

CUNY Graduate School and University Center accounts for 43.5% of all Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies master's credential graduates

That is an overwhelming concentration — well above the 5% national median for largest-entity share, leaving the rest of Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies a distant remainder. That school produced 54 graduates in the most recent cohort, anchoring a meaningful slice of national supply for this field. CUNY Graduate School and University Center'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

Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies debt-to-earnings ratio is 0.30 — 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

Earnings Distribution

Min
$54,322
25th %ile
$63,673
Median
$69,701
75th %ile
$75,709
Max
$82,579
$54,322 $82,579

Top Schools for This Program

School Name State Awards (latest year) Median Earnings (4 yrs after completion) Median Debt
Southeastern Oklahoma State University OK 23 $82,579 $20,499
San Francisco State University CA 21 $75,709 -
University of California-Los Angeles CA 21 $69,701 $25,340
CUNY Graduate School and University Center NY 54 $68,933 -
Widener University PA - $63,673 -
Northeastern Illinois University IL 5 $54,322 -
University of Minnesota-Duluth MN 0 $66,614 at 1 yr -

Earnings trajectory. For the 5 schools reporting both horizons, median earnings are 38% 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 Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies on school-count breadth (101 schools) and mean four-year median earnings ($69,153). Peers exclude the same two-digit CIP family so neighborhoods are not CIP-containment siblings. School-count peers include Film/Video and Photographic Arts, Nutrition Sciences, City/Urban, Community, and Regional Planning. Earnings peers include Psychology, General, Criminal Justice and Corrections, Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management. Neighborhoods are forced disjoint so each axis surfaces a different set of programs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies graduates earn? ▼
Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies graduates earn $69,153 on average four years after completion, across the 6 of 101 schools that report earnings for this program. Earnings range from $54,322 to $82,579 depending on the institution.
Which school's Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies graduates earn the most? ▼
Southeastern Oklahoma State University has the highest reported median earnings for Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies graduates at $82,579, 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 Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies? ▼
Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group 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.