Highest Paying Bachelor Degree Jobs - Best for 2010

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) does an annual survey of starting salaries for students entering the labor market. The survey is categorized by college major, providing a snapshot of the most lucrative college bachelors' degrees based on entry level pay.

The survey published in the fall of 2009 posted this list of the top sixteen highest average salaries for entry level college graduates, based on major:

1.Chemical Engineering $65,675
2.Computer Science $61,467
3.Computer Engineering $60,844
4.Electrical/Electronic Engineering $60,509
5.Mechanical Engineering $59,222
6.Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineering $56,335
7.Construction Science/Management $53,573
8.Information Sciences and Systems $52,886
9.Civil Engineering $52,287
10.Economics $49,628
11.Logistics/Materials Management $49,268
12.Finance $49,163
13.Accounting $48,471
14.Human Resources $45,170
15.Business Administration $44,607
16.Marketing $42,260

There are a large number of educational disciplines missing from this list. Salaries for students with education degrees, communications degrees, criminal justice degrees and degrees in the hard sciences such as biology all had average salaries below these figures. Some fields such as education (teaching) often require a masters' degree for full licensure.

For communications careers and advertising jobs the entry level pay isn't strong because of the amount of on the job training involved. Missing from this list also are the nursing jobs, because they can be attained with an associates' degree. Ironically, the median starting salary for nurses today is just over $61,000, according to the US Department of Labor. For the Labor Department statistics however, starting salary does not necessarily mean entry level salary.