The Highest Paying Majors (and Schools)

However, business degrees appreciate in value as time goes on. Take marketing communications, for example. Starting out at $42,000, these majors are making $82,000 median by mid-career, nearly doubling their income. And you’ll find a similar dynamic with agricultural economics and business ($46,000 to $87,500), marketing management ($44,100 to $84,100), and marketing and international business ($45,000 to $85,400). This biggest growth, however, occurs in actuarial mathematics, where earnings double from $58,800 to $119,000 between early and mid-career.

MONEY CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS (OR MEANING)

That said, high salaries aren’t always associated with high career satisfaction. When professionals provide their academic backgrounds and incomes to PayScale, they are also asked this question: “Does your work make the world a better place?”

Surprisingly, medical laboratory science majors, who rank 236th in mid-career pay at $61,500, find the highest degree of meaning in their work. 97% answered “Very much so” or “Yes” to their work making the world a better place. They were followed by pastoral ministry majors (91%), traditionally among the most satisfied professionals. Overall, health professionals found the greatest meaning in their work, despite low pay. Community health education majors clocked in at 84%, despite raking in just $56,500 (Good for 277th). Counselors made even less at mid-career– $40,900 (316th), but also averaged 81% on the meaning benchmark.

In fact, health care workers dominated the meaning measure, no different than engineers owned income. Health and medical placed 13 majors among the top 20 for meaning. Education and service-related positions (early childhood and elementary education, human services, etc.) represent all but one other profession. And only one high-paying major – mining engineering – ranked among the Top 20 for meaning (a 79% satisfaction rate with degree holders earning $109,000 by mid-career). What’s more, only six of these high meaning positions ranked among the 200 highest-paid (with safety management, ranked 108th at $80,800, coming in after mining engineering).

Despite their high incomes, engineers aren’t particularly dissatisfied with their work. Petroleum engineers, for example, average 71% when it comes to meaning. In fact, only two types of engineers, computer science and engineering and computer engineering, came in below 50% for meaning among the 13 highest-paid engineering fields. However, the results are decidedly dour when it comes to business majors. Among the 26 highest-paid business majors at mid-career, there were just six where 50% or more found high meaning in their work. They were headed by project management (58%), mathematics and statistics (58%), risk management and insurance (56%), financial management (55%), and sales and marketing (55%). Among the least happy business majors were statistics (29%), finance and real estate (31%), marketing management (35%), marketing and international business (36%), and supply chain management (38%).