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NMSI Blog

Engineering = Earnings

And the winner is.........ENGINEERING!

The National Association of Colleges and Employers released their salary survey for the class of 2012 and the results are not surprising - Engineering tops the list of salaries but Teaching showed the greatest increase over 2012 (the two categories where NMSI focuses)
  • Engineering - $61,913 up 3.9% 
  • Computer Science - $59,221 up 3.8% 
  • Business - $53,000 up 4.2% 
  • Health Sciences - $49,196 up 3.9%
  • Communications - $43,717 up 4.1%
  • Math and Sciences - $42,471 up 2.7%
  • Education - $40,668 up 5.4% 
  • Humanities and Social Science - $36,998 up 2.0% 
The absolute highest starting salaries go to mining, quarrying, and oil and gas mechanical engineering graduates who pulled in an average of $77,500 and the largest increase went to aerospace with 8.3% bringing it to $64,000.  

The high paying jobs for the class of 2012 are Financial Manager ($75K), software developers ($73K) and aerospace engineering ($71K).  

I will say we are a little disappointed in the sciences and mathematics fields but there was a pretty wide span from a minimum of $33K to a maximum of $51K.

Bottom line is that engineering is still a  path to a great career with outstanding earnings so that you can actually live on your own and not in your parent's basement.