Top Colleges for High-Paying Jobs in Engineering
Caltech B.A.s who go into engineering earn about $25,000 a year more than the median B.A. graduate in the field over 10 years, according to the Burning Glass Institute. Photo: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images By Demetria Gallegos May 2, 2023 9:00 am ET Engineers who attended Harvard as undergraduates earn significantly more per year than graduates of other schools, according to a new ranking of colleges by Burning Glass, a nonprofit that researches employment trends. The average annual engineering salary of Harvard graduates over their first 10 years in the field is $130,119. That’s a premium of nearly $40,000 a year over the median graduate’s average annual salary of $90,174. Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology are No. 2 and No. 3 on the private-school list.
Caltech B.A.s who go into engineering earn about $25,000 a year more than the median B.A. graduate in the field over 10 years, according to the Burning Glass Institute.
Photo: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Engineers who attended Harvard as undergraduates earn significantly more per year than graduates of other schools, according to a new ranking of colleges by Burning Glass, a nonprofit that researches employment trends.
The average annual engineering salary of Harvard graduates over their first 10 years in the field is $130,119. That’s a premium of nearly $40,000 a year over the median graduate’s average annual salary of $90,174. Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology are No. 2 and No. 3 on the private-school list.
The University of California, Berkeley is No. 1 on the list of public schools, with graduates in the engineering field earning a premium of $20,339, or $110,513 in total annual salary, averaged over those first 10 years. It’s followed by the University of California, Santa Cruz and the U.S. Naval Academy in second and third place.
The rankings analyze the salary impact of undergraduate schools on graduates who go into a given field, such as finance, accounting and law, in addition to engineering. This “school effect” is irrespective of which major the graduates chose and whether they pursued postgraduate certifications or graduate studies, says Matt Sigelman, president of Burning Glass.
The nonprofit used data about experience and pay from Lightcast, which is a labor-market data firm, and Glassdoor, which rates companies.
The engineering ranking includes a broad array of professions such as aeronautical, chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineers, but not computer software engineers, says Mr. Sigelman.
He says the large share of engineers among the graduates of schools such as Montana Technical University (35.43%) and the Colorado School of Mines (42.85%) points to those schools’ strength in metallurgical and petroleum engineering and other specialties in demand in the oil, gas and mining industries.
Methodology
Rankings are determined by a Burning Glass Institute analysis of experience and pay data from Lightcast, a labor-market data firm, and Glassdoor, a company-ratings website. For each college, an annual salary premium was calculated using the difference between the earnings of the school’s graduates in their first 10 years after graduation and the median graduate in the field. To filter for graduates working in engineering, the Burning Glass Institute analyzed only the roles relevant to the profession as classified by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Standard Occupational Classification codes and the U.S. Census Bureau’s North American Industry Classification System.
Ms. Gallegos is a news editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. She can be reached at [email protected].
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