Methodology & sources

The data

Every salary figure on this site comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) program — currently release V4.13.0 2025Q4. PSEO links university transcript records to actual earnings reported in state unemployment-insurance wage records. Nobody fills in a survey; these are real paychecks.

We show the median (P50) and the middle 50% range (P25–P75) of annual earnings 1, 5 and 10 years after graduation, for each university × field of study × degree level with published data. Earnings are in nominal dollars, pooled across graduation cohorts (2001–2021 depending on program).

What "vs national" means

The national benchmark for a major and degree level is the graduate-weighted median of all reporting institutions' medians. We only compute a benchmark when at least three institutions report.

Caveats worth knowing

• Coverage: earnings are observed for graduates working in states covered by PSEO partnerships — not all 50.
• Small programs are suppressed by the Census for privacy; that's why some year columns show "n/a".
• Certificate and associate figures come from the same pipeline as bachelor's and graduate degrees.
• The payback calculator is an illustration (6.5% APR, salary-share repayment), not financial advice.

Updates

The Census refreshes PSEO roughly twice a year; we re-ingest each release. Data last ingested 2026-07-23.