30 Best Paying College Majors: 2017

Slideshow May 16, 2017 at 10:52 AM
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(Ed note: Check out the 2018 version of 30 Best Paying College Majors) Any major that's attached to science or engineering promises to be a boon for graduates entering the job world, according to findings of PayScale.com in its 2016-2017 College Salary Report. Science and math majors dominate the top college starting salaries and mid-career earners, and are largely made up of male graduates. In fact, 80% of those who graduate with the top degree on this list are men, according to PayScale data. Worse yet, only 8% of physics majors and 7% of engineering majors are women. (Related: 20 Best Paying Jobs for College Business Majors: 2017 and 31 Worst Paying College Majors) The rankings above are based on data collected by PayScale from 983 universities and includes graduates with bachelor's degrees in 336 disciplines. The universities surveyed include 85% of U.S. schools with an enrollment of more than 5,000 and 62% of schools with enrollment over 1,000, using a sample size of 1.4 million "degree holding, full-time, civilian employees working in the U.S." The number in parentheses provides the overall ranking (of the 336 majors) for mid-career pay. Please click through the carousel above for the best paying college majors for 2017. --- Related on ThinkAdvisor: