Biology, General

Is a Biology degree worth it?

Across 837 bachelor's programs that report earnings, the median pays its graduates $27,179 a year after graduation, and the middle half pay between $23,885 and $30,842. The median for all majors is $37,050. At the median program, graduates who borrowed owe $27,702. Debt is 1.02x first-year earnings, which ranks 109th of 147 majors, where 1st carries the least debt for the pay.

Biology graduates start out earning well below the typical major, and the major ranks in the bottom third of all majors. The best-paying programs admit somewhat fewer students than most biology programs, and half of them sit in Massachusetts, near the nation's largest life sciences cluster around Boston. Northeastern University Oakland's figure looks pooled with its Boston campus, because the former Mills College graduated only a handful of biology majors a year.

The lowest-paying programs cluster in Puerto Rico, where wages trail the U.S. mainland in every major occupational group. First-year pay also understates this major, because biology is by far the most common major among medical school applicants. Many graduates are still in medical school, PhD programs or other training a year after college.

These are earnings one year after graduating, for students who received federal aid. Majors that lead to graduate school, or to careers that start slowly, look worse here than they will ten years on.