Graduates who earn the highest starting salaries straight out of college don't come from Brown or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth or Harvard or Penn or Princeton or Yale. None of the country's eight Ivy League schools even crack the top 10 for highest "early career pay," according to numbers gathered from nearly 1.5 million employees and crunched by PayScale. So how do you make the big bucks right away? Go to military school.
U.S. Naval Academy students make the most out of college, earning a median salary of $82,900 over the first five years out of the gates. West Point, at $82,800, comes in second, followed by Harvey Mudd, MIT, then yes, another military school, this one the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. The U.S. Air Force Academy also cracked the top 10.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
-
Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutinySpeed Read The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been investigating whether Coinbase misstated its user numbers in past disclosures
-
Starbucks baristas strike over dress codespeed read The new uniform 'puts the burden on baristas' to buy new clothes, said a Starbucks Workers United union delegate
-
Warren Buffet announces surprise retirementspeed read At the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the billionaire investor named Vice Chairman Greg Abel his replacement
