As college graduates hit the job market, here are the lowest- and highest-paying majors

Jaweed Kaleem

Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 6:00 AM 6 min read

When Rui Ming Yu first applied to colleges five years ago, he considered studying history, art or design. But when the Stockton resident enrolled at UC Davis, he changed his mind — and opted for biology, a common premed major. Medical jobs pay well, he reasoned.

But during his first year, after he thought over his lack of interest in certain required courses, such as chemistry, and the time and money he'd need to invest in years of schooling to become a doctor, Yu switched his focus again.

"For me, it was about finding something in college that I'd enjoy studying and looking at being able to make a good salary after graduation," said Yu, who graduated Saturday with a major in mechanical engineering and a minor in electrical engineering and has landed a job at a San Francisco Bay Area medical device company that makes catheters.

"My parents sacrificed for me to come to America and for me to have this opportunity, so I have to make the right decisions for my future," said Yu, who is the son of Chinese immigrants and the first in his family to attend college.

As new graduates enter the job market and a fresh generation of students behind them prepares to start their college journeys, surveys have shown that employment and salary prospects, weighed against the high costs of higher education, are increasing concerns.

Not every field of study is created equally when it comes to pay.

Using U.S. census data, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report this year calculating early and midcareer median wages for college graduates by major.

Eight of the 10 majors with the highest median early-career incomes were in engineering. The two others were physics and computer science, which was the one with the highest early-career salary of $80,000.

Midcareer wages followed some of the same patterns, but two other majors also popped into the top 10: finance and economics. Looking at the top 15 majors for midcareer wages, mathematics and international affairs also made the cut alongside information systems management.

The lowest-paying major right out of school: foreign languages at $40,000, with education degrees not far behind. Half of the 10 worst-paying majors for people in the middle of their careers were focused on education, reflecting the low pay of teaching jobs in the U.S.

The analysis counted "early career" as graduates ages 22 to 27, and "midcareer" as those 35 to 45.

Data for the University of California, where Yu attended, are more promising.

About 60,000 undergraduates graduate each year across campuses and more than two-thirds of them graduate with no debt. Among the 70% of graduates who stay on to work in California, median earnings within two years tend to be higher than overall national figures.