E
ngineers, engineers, engineers (with a few scientists thrown in).
That’s the vibe of the top 10 highest-paying college majors this season, recently announced by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
The list reveals that some of our smartest students will take home big paychecks for entering the industries that make up our nation’s infrastructure: energy, pharmaceutical, mining, telecommunications and aerospace.
Here’s the list of majors and corresponding average salaries:
- Petroleum Engineering: $86,220
- Chemical Engineering: $65,142
- Mining & Mineral Engineering (incl. geological): $64,552
- Computer Science: $61,205
- Computer Engineering: $60,879
- Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering: $59,074
- Mechanical Engineering: $58,392
- Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering: $57,734
- Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering: $57,231
- Information Sciences & Systems: $54,038
NACE said the offers of graduates with technical degrees “tend to benefit from their relatively low supply,” owing to increased competition for such skills.
That drives up offers — so much so that petroleum engineering earns more than 1.5 times the average starting salary reported for bachelor’s degree graduates as a whole, $48,351. Meanwhile, petroleum engineering degrees account for less than 1 percent of all bachelor’s degrees.
You might say that it’s good to be in the business of building a smarter planet.
