Engineering Degrees Earn More and in More Places

The starting pay of certain liberal arts majors generally starts well below that of graduates in engineering fields, according to a study by Payscale. Graduates with engineering degrees earned average starting pay of $56,000 in their first full-time jobs out of college, topping other majors. Communications and English majors only earned $34,000 in their first jobs. The survey, which was conducted between April and June of this year, was answered by about 11,000 people who graduated between 1999 and 2010. The reported starting pay was adjusted for inflation to make the salaries of graduates from different years comparable. Technical majors even have an advantage in fields that are typically hotbeds for liberal arts majors. Technical degrees are valued in all fields. There have been cases where a communications department actually preferred someone having an engineering degree rather than a communications degree.