US Colleges
Your major may matter more than your school
Field-of-study earnings often dwarf brand-name gaps one year out.
August 12, 2026
Institution medians hide majors. A campus can look middling overall while its engineering or nursing graduates earn strongly — or the reverse. Scorecard’s field-of-study file reports median earnings one year after completion for specific programs. That is early-career, not lifetime destiny, but it is directional in a way prestige anecdotes are not.
Shop the field, then the campus
- Start the engine with a major family filter so schools that do not offer the field drop out before scoring.
- Read by-major lists for where graduates in a given CIP earn the most one year out.
- Try Ask with plain language (“best-paying public CS programs in the South”) — it maps phrases to the same vocabulary the engine uses.
Caveats worth keeping
One-year earnings favor fields with fast labor-market entry. Graduate school paths look weak early. Small programs get suppressed for privacy. And earnings are not the only reason to study philosophy — they are just the right tool when money is the question you are actually asking.