Top Colleges for $$ Engineering Jobs
November 2023
Summary: Where you get your undergraduate degree can have a big impact on how much money you make as an engineer. And while a few elite private universities give you the biggest salary boost, a number of top public universities offer sizable raises as well.
It’s all about the Benjamins…
Let’s say you’re planning a career in engineering, and you want to get the most bang for your buck from your undergraduate degree. Which universities regularly churn out graduates with the highest salaries? A 2023 study from the Burning Glass Institute (a nonprofit that studies employment trends) found that where you get your undergraduate degree can have a big impact on how much money you make down the road. Specifically, they looked at your first ten years after graduation and asked: How much more do you make than the average person at your position?
Note that this study looked at a wide variety of engineering jobs including aeronautical, chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, and mechanical. But it did not include computer software engineers, which it considers a distinct field. It also did not account for whether or not these engineers went to graduate school; it simply looked at where they got their undergraduate degrees.
The results…
Perhaps unsurprisingly, graduates from some of the most prestigious universities commanded the highest engineering salaries in the decade following graduation. But surprisingly, you didn’t need to go to a renowned tech-heavy university like MIT to get that top salary boost.
Harvard led the pack of all universities by a fairly sizable margin. On average, graduates of Harvard who go into engineering earn about $40,000 a year more than the national average. While the average engineering salary in the first 10 years after graduation is $90,174/year, the average salary for a Harvard grad during that same time period is $130,119. That’s about a 45% raise. Not bad, considering you’ve probably got a lot of hefty student loans to pay off.
The other usual suspects made the list as well: #2 Stanford, #3 Caltech, #4 Princeton, #5 Brown, etc. #1 Harvard and #2 Stanford offered pretty substantial gains over the next best school, but after that, they’re all closely lumped together, without too much difference between them. For example, the average salary difference between graduates of #3 Caltech and #4 Princeton was less than $300. The biggest surprise on this Top 10 list was Santa Clara University, a less competitive school with a 55% acceptance rate. But graduates of Santa Clara undoubtedly benefit from the school’s proximity; it is located just minutes away from Silicon Valley, home to many top-paying engineering jobs.
The Next 10 on the list…
The next 10 Best Colleges for engineering careers tell a similar story. On average, graduates of these schools make anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 more than the national average, which is great. But they also make about $10,000-$15,000 less annually than graduates from schools on the Top 10 list. Some of these universities are extremely difficult to get into, such as #14 Rice, #15 Cornell, and #17 Duke, which all have less than 10% acceptance rates. But others have much higher acceptance rates, such as #13 University of Tulsa (75% acceptance rate) and University of the Pacific (80% acceptance rate). That’s something to keep in mind if you’re planning a career in engineering but don’t think you can get into one of the most selective colleges.
Top Public Universities…
There’s more good news. Looking to save a lot on tuition? Smart shoppers know a bargain when they see one, and there are a number of excellent public universities that give you a big boost in salary when you go into engineering. Assuming you’re an in-state resident, you can cut your college costs in half, if not more, by attending one of the state schools on the list. And as you can see by the chart below, the salary boost you get from these public universities is as good as all but maybe the Top 5 private universities.
Top public universities for engineering salaries include #1 UC Berkeley, #2 UC Santa Cruz, #3 US Naval Academy, #4 San Francisco State, #5 San Jose State, and #6 UCLA, etc. Graduates of these universities command $15,000-$20,000 more than the national average, which is pretty much on-par with top private institutions like UPenn, MIT, Columbia, and Dartmouth. And when you consider how much tuition you can save as an in-state resident, it begins to look extremely appealing. Naturally, universities like Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State, San Jose State, and even UCLA benefit from their proximity to Silicon Valley. Location, location, location.
The take-away from this is that when it comes to high-paying engineering jobs, you don’t necessarily need to go to an expensive, top-flight private university to get the best jobs. Many far-less expensive public universities offer the same salary boost for graduates, and many of these schools are much easier to get into. San Francisco State, for example, has a whopping 93% acceptance rate. And San Jose State has an 85% acceptance rate. Graduates of these schools command the same engineering salaries as graduates of Dartmouth (6% acceptance rate) and Carnegie Mellon (14% acceptance rate).
More Public University Options…
There are plenty of public university options that didn’t make the Top 10 list but still give you a big bump in your engineering salary. And it’s worth noting that these Top 20 public universities offer pretty much the exact same salary advantage as the Top 20 private universities, albeit at a much lower tuition cost. As noted before, many of these universities have extremely high admission rates, such as Indiana University (85%), University of Oklahoma (85%), and UC Merced (87%). That’s great news for anyone planning a career in engineering.
Final thoughts
Keep in mind that this study didn’t look at where (or even whether) these engineers went to graduate school; it only measured their salaries against where they got their undergraduate degrees. Also, it didn’t look at how likely you were to get one of these high-paying engineering jobs; it only looked at the salary you could expect once you landed the job. It could be the case, for example, that graduates of MIT have a much easier time landing engineering jobs in general, even if they’re not always the highest-paying jobs.
A new study shows that you don’t need to graduate from a tech-heavy university like MIT to land a high-paying engineering job.
Caltech in sunny Pasadena, California is one of the top-rated tech universities in the country, and engineering graduates can expect to earn $25,000/year more than the national average.
With a 55% acceptance rate, Santa Clara University is much easier to get into than an Ivy League, but engineering graduates command similar high salaries.
UC Berkeley tops the list of public universities in many different job categories, including top salaries for engineering jobs.
Tuition is free at the US Naval Academy, and engineering graduates earn some of the highest salaries in the country.
You don’t need to go to a prestigious and expensive Ivy League school to land a top-paying engineering job. Graduates of more affordable and more accessible universities like Indiana University and University of Oklahoma (pictured) command similar high salaries.