PlainCollege

Top 10 Bachelor's Programs by Average Median Earnings

College Scorecard program-earnings data ranking US bachelor's programs by average median earnings six years post-enrollment, calculated live from our current program-earnings data.

Research period:

Compiled by PlainCollege Editorial on 2026-05-16

Research question

Among bachelor's programs offered at 20 or more US colleges with at least 10 completers per school, which programs report the highest average median earnings six years after enrollment, and how concentrated is the top end of the distribution?

Methodology

This ranking is calculated live from PlainCollege's current bachelor's programs data, sourced from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard Program Earnings Dataset. No figures are hardcoded – every number reflects our most recent import of the source data and updates automatically whenever we refresh it.

The U.S. Department of Education publishes the College Scorecard Program Earnings Dataset on its own release schedule. We import each new release as soon as it's available and replace our copy of the data in full, so a newer government release always supersedes the previous one – readers never see a mix of old and new figures.

Records with missing or suppressed values for the ranked metric are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero, since the U.S. Department of Education sometimes withholds a figure for privacy, small-sample, or quality-control reasons. We do not adjust, smooth, or estimate values the source didn't publish; if a later government release revises a figure, the revised value appears here automatically on our next import.

PlainCollege's editorial team reviews each ranking before publication. If you believe a figure attributed to a specific entity is inaccurate, you can request a correction through the contact page – we'll check it against the original government release and correct it if warranted.

Every number on this page traces back to its original U.S. Department of Education source. See the methodology page for the complete source list, data vintage, and how we process government datasets.

Top 10 Bachelor's Programs by Average Median Earnings

Live data, updated automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset

USD

What this shows These figures average across every school offering the program - an individual program's ranking can shift once a specific school's cost and location are factored in.

Source U.S. Department of Education

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects PlainCollege's current data. This page updates automatically whenever we refresh our dataset.

# Bachelor's program Schools offering Avg median earnings
1 Computer Engineering 185 $106,110
2 Computer Science 359 $103,124
3 Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration 24 $100,192
4 Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering 265 $97,825
5 Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space Engineering 61 $96,792
6 Chemical Engineering 155 $96,747
7 Industrial Engineering 90 $94,550
8 Construction Management 52 $92,337
9 Statistics 55 $91,575
10 Mechanical Engineering 321 $91,037

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard Program Earnings Dataset. Values update automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset. U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard Program Earnings Dataset. Values update automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Computer Engineering, with a value of $106,110 on the Avg median earnings column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes from PlainCollege's current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record ($106,110) and the 10th-ranked record ($91,037) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard Program Earnings Dataset. PlainCollege imports each new release from the agency in full, so every number here reflects our most recent import. See the methodology page for the source URL, data vintage, and how we process this dataset.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

Median earnings reported in the College Scorecard reflect graduates who received federal financial aid and were employed and not enrolled in further education six years after starting their program, this excludes graduates pursuing advanced degrees, those self-employed, and many who did not receive federal aid. Earnings are not adjusted for cost-of-living differences between regions, so high earnings in coastal metro areas reflect both program quality and local wage levels. Program-level averages aggregate across all schools offering the program, masking variation between elite and non-selective institutions. The completer threshold of 10 students excludes very small programs where median values would be statistically noisy. Year-to-year revisions by the Department of Education can shift the ranking when programs cross the minimum-completer threshold in either direction.

Secondary cut from the same source

Top 10 bachelor's programs by total reported completers, a different lens on program scale

Value

What this shows The highest-earning programs above are rarely the most popular ones here - scale and pay follow different logics, and a large completer count reflects broad access as much as demand.

Source U.S. Department of Education

Related data

Sources