Those long nights in the library just might pay off—Duke graduates are among the nation's top earners, according to PayScale's 2010 College Salary Report.
Duke graduates earn a starting salary of approximately $55,000, and by the middle of their career take in around $117,000 annually. Although Duke is not ranked in the top 10 list of starting salaries, it is listed nine overall in the mid-career rankings. The study considered data of college grads from 999 different universities with 125 different majors, according to PayScale's press release.
California Institute of Technology's $69,900 starting salary and Harvey Mudd College's $126,000 median mid-career salary led the nation's universities.
But as a result of the recession, starting pay is down an average of 2.5 percent for all of the schools considered. At the eight Ivy League schools, starting pay decreased by five percent.
Top Starting Salaries (which, as PayScale notes, is made up of engineering and nursing schools):
- 1. California Institute of Technology ($69,900)
- 2. Loma Linda University ($69,100)
- 3. Harvey Mudd College ($68,900)
- 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($68,300)
- 5. Felician College ($62,600)
- 6. Carnegie Mellon University ($62,400)
- 7. Molloy College ($62,300)
- 8. Polytechnic Institute of New York University ($62,100)
- 9. Colorado School of Mines ($61,600)
- 10. Worcester Polytechnic Institute ($60,900)
Mid-Career Rankings:
- 1. Harvey Mudd College ($126,000)
- 2. Princeton University and Dartmouth College ($123,000)
- 4. Harvard University ($121,000)
- 5. California Institute of Technology ($120,000)
- 6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Colgate University ($119,000)
- 9. Duke University ($117,000)
- 10. Bucknell University ($115,000)
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