Compiled by PlainCollege, College outcomes data analysis
62
Schools
Associate's
Credential Level
$44,392
National Avg Earnings
What the IPEDS & College Scorecard Data Shows for Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies is tracked across 62 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 associate'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 $44,392, calculated from 3 schools with published earnings data. The top-reporting institution in this program is Austin Community College District at $50,539. 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.
Full Sail University accounts for 72.7% of all Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies associate's credential graduates
Full Sail University accounts for nearly the entire Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies total — well above the 5% national median for largest-entity share, so a Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies-wide average is effectively a description of Full Sail University alone, not a genuine cross-entity picture — read every other entity's figures independently, not against this aggregate. That school produced 40 graduates in the most recent cohort, anchoring a meaningful slice of national supply for this field. For practical purposes, Full Sail University's decisions ARE Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies's decisions for the affected population.
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies debt-to-earnings ratio is 0.45 — 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.
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 Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies on school-count breadth
(62 schools) and mean four-year median earnings ($44,392).
Peers exclude the same two-digit CIP family so neighborhoods are not CIP-containment siblings.
School-count peers include Funeral Service and Mortuary Science, Data Processing, Information Science/Studies. Earnings peers include Communication and Media Studies, Biology, General, Computer Software and Media Applications.
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.
How much do Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies graduates earn? ▼
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies graduates earn $44,392 on average four years after completion, across the 3 of 62 schools that report earnings for this program.
Which school's Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies graduates earn the most? ▼
Austin Community College District has the highest reported median earnings for Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies graduates at $50,539, 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 Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies? ▼
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies programs typically award a Associate's credential. Earnings vary by school and credential level.
Top Schools for Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies
Closest schools offering this program – compare earnings side by side
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.