Which College Degrees Earn The Highest Salaries, Visualized

Some people choose their college majors because of their passions; some base it on job opportunities and earning potential. There's no debating that different degrees lead to drastically different occupations and pay scales, but the question remains: which college degrees actually boast the highest salaries? And is it true that a person with an engineering degree is likely to make more money than someone with, say, a degree in English?

Using data from a study of 1.2 million college graduates, Redditor SportsAnalyticsGuy put together a chart that looks into which bachelor degrees have the highest entry-level and mid-career salaries. His graph includes both the median starting salary of different bachelor degrees as well as salary data of what people are making 10 years after they have graduated. The mid-career salaries are divided into percentiles that allow you a more comprehensive look into the salaries of the higher-earners and lower-earners of the field.

One of the things you immediately notice is that physician assistants are one of the highest-earning specializations straight out of college, with a median starting salary of $74,300. However, the degree seems to have less earning potential in the long run compared to other majors. People with bachelor's degrees in physician's assistant programs only saw their median salaries increase 23.4% after 10 years, according to the calculations of investment website Visual Capitalist, which is low compared to the 90% and higher growth rates of degrees such as physics, economics and marketing.

If you want to play it nice and safe, though, a degree in Engineering seems to be a good bet. Nearly all of the degrees that have the word "engineering" attached to it have pretty decent starting salaries and certain fields like chemical engineering and aerospace engineering even have mid-career median salaries that come in above $100,000.

[Reddit via Visual Capitalist]