What’s Your Major Worth? The Degrees With The Biggest Financial Returns

Have you ever had a moment where you’ve thought to yourself, “Is this degree actually worth it?” Maybe it’s a friend’s degree. Or, maybe it’s your degree. Chances are, you’re wondering if it will actually open doors, or if it will just leave you with a mountain of debt.

Choosing a college major is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make – so how do you know which degrees actually deliver a decent ROI? The latest breakdown of college-major return on investment comes from Visual Capitalist in a piece written by Julia Wendling.

Using data modeled by the Education Data Initiative, 37 U.S. bachelor’s degrees were compared using graduates’ added earnings over their first 10 working years. The initiative looked at these earnings against the total cost of earning each degree, including tuition and lost wages. To keep the analysis realistic, the Education Data Initiative modeled earnings using median salaries and assumed 4% annual raises for consistency.

TOP MAJORS BY RETURN ON INVESTMENT

In the lead, Electrical Engineering dominated the charts with an average of $652,644 in earnings in just 10‑years, and an ROI of 100%. This is a no brainer. Right behind, Chemical Engineering posts $572,595. In third place we have Business Information Systems & Statistics with $567,973 in added earnings and the highest ROI in the entire dataset at 135%.

The rest of the top ten features more engineering and computing fields, alongside some business majors. Finance ranks sixth with $513,560 in added earnings and a 112% ROI, while Economics lands seventh at $510,487 and a 96% ROI.

Outside the top ten, business itself ranks 12th with $310,221 in added earnings and a 28% ROI, a solid return for such a broad field.

Several business-adjacent majors are in the broader winner’s circle. International Relations follows at 14th with $285,093 and a 23% ROI, while Communications lands at 20th with $175,264 in added earnings (undercut by a -32% ROI). This is an area with slower wage growth and higher program costs.

Further down the list, Interdisciplinary Studies (26th) posts $144,110 in added earnings and a -47% ROI, and Public Administration (27th) shows $130,956 with a -49% ROI. These majors still generate meaningful early‑career income, but their flatter wage curves slow down how quickly graduates can recoup their investment.

In other words, ROI is as much about the timing as it is the discipline. While technical and business-focused degrees often deliver stronger financial returns early in a career, liberal arts pathways may take longer to show their value. Kery Murakami wrote in Inside Higher Ed, “A liberal arts education may not have the highest returns in the short run, but a study finds that after 40 years, liberal arts institutions bring a higher return than most colleges.”

Next Page: The Financial Aid Myth That Could Cost You $10,000.

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