Top 10 Paying Majors: College Degrees
RSSThe National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) does an annual survey of the top paying bachelors' degrees based on reports of recruiting activity. For 2009, their top 10 paying majors with average starting Salary are:
- Petroleum Engineering $83,121
- Chemical Engineering $64.902
- Mining Engineering $64,404
- Computer Engineering $61,738
- Computer Science $61,407
- Electrical Engineering $60,125
- Mechanical Engineering $58,766
- Industrial Engineering $58,358
- Systems Engineering $57,438
- Engineering Technology $56,447
That's the raw data. With regard to job placement, however, it helps to look at the market. There are currently 7,100 mining engineers employed in the U.S. so new opportunities will be scarce. There are three times that many petroleum engineers, which means that if the field grows at 10% each year there will be 2000+ new openings every year.
Engineering technology is an excellent option, because it allows for specialization in a number of fields. There are a half million engineering technologist jobs currently in the U.S. There are currently 300,000 electrical engineering jobs if you fold in electronics engineering. While there is rapid projected growth for the field of chemical engineering, there are only 31,700 chemical engineers currently working, which means job competition will be fierce.
Computer engineering and computer scientist jobs are evolving - and expanding - as technology development continues to race along. While there are only 75,000 or so computer engineers working, those figures apply to hardware engineers. There are 1.3 million software engineer jobs currently, at salaries not far removed from those in the computer hardware and electronics field.
