PayScale Ranks Harvey Mudd No. 1 for Early Career Salaries

Harvey Mudd ranked No. 1 for early career pay and No. 4 for mid-career pay in PayScale’s 2024 College Salary Report.

The rankings are based on reported salaries of 3.1 million alumni representing more than 2,400 colleges and universities across the United States, who pursued careers with a bachelor’s degree as their final degree. “Early career” is defined as the median salary for alumni with zero to five years of experience and “mid-career” is defined as 10 or more years of experience in a field.

According to PayScale’s data, Harvey Mudd had the highest early career median salary at $115,000; Samuel Merritt University came in second with $114,800; CalTech placed third with $111,000 MIT fourth with $110, 200 and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy fifth at $103,000.

For the mid-career salary ranking, MIT came in first at $196,900; Princeton University second at $194,100; United States Naval Academy third at $187,800; Harvey Mudd fourth at $185,900; and Babson College fifth at $181,400.

Harvey Mudd also ranked No. 1 in PayScale’s most recent College ROI Report, a separate report published each spring that ranks colleges based on a 20-year net return on investment compared to the 24-year earnings of high school graduates without a bachelor’s degree.