Engineering degree guarantees higher starting salaries: data

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Engineering majors still earn more than grads with other degrees, with an average starting salary of $62,600, Forbes reported based on data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Bachelor’s degree graduates are earning salaries that are 2.6 percent higher than graduates in 2012. The average is $45,600. As usual, humanities and social science majors had the lowest starting salaries of seven majors tallied, at $38,000. But their paychecks increased more than any other discipline since 2012, up 2.9 percent.

Computer science majors receive the second-highest salaries, at $59,100, but like engineers, their salaries slipped a bit from 2012, down 0.2 percent. The third-highest earning major is business, at $55,100, which is up 2.3 percent from 2012, the second-highest jump after humanities majors.

The overall employment picture in the U.S. is tough. According to the NACE’s report in 2013, only 29.3 percent had landed jobs prior to graduation. The NACE says that 59 percent of grads had found jobs six to eight months after graduation, meaning more than 40 percent were unemployed.

By Lee Shin-young, Intern reporter
sylee@heraldcorp.com