Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing

Highest-Paying Colleges for Biochemistry and Biophysics (Bachelor's)

Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics earn a median of $65,466 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $44,889 and $88,432. We rank the 59 U.S. colleges whose Biochemistry and Biophysics programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,209 graduates in all. That puts Biochemistry and Biophysics at #50 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.

University of California-Santa Barbara, in California, leads at $90,694, 36% above the median ranked school ($66,483). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $61,066 and $70,945, and the lowest earns $44,979, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 31 of the 59 ranked schools (53%) match or beat the national median.

Public universities dominate the top 20: 19 public, 1 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 92% are public. California places 8 schools in the top 20, ahead of Colorado (2).

The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $16,984 a year, against $16,805 across all 59 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,230 in federal loans, about 25% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 1.7 years.

Showing the top 50 of 59 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.

Ranking table: Highest-Paying Colleges for Biochemistry and Biophysics (Bachelor's)

1	University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year	$90,694	29 †	$11,750	$16,109	1.2
2	University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year	$88,305	50	$18,959	$17,890	1.4
3	Montclair State University Montclair, NJ Public · 4-year	$81,519	37 †	$25,000	$15,566	1.4
4	Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year	$80,364	29 †	$25,125	$28,198	2.6
5	California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA Public · 4-year	$79,820	28 †	$11,000	$10,440	1.0
6	Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year	$79,510	25 †	$22,862	$24,406	2.3
7	California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year	$78,097	28 †	$17,500	$16,665	1.6
8	University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year	$77,853	67	$23,250	$22,383	2.4
9	Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year	$77,336	74	$25,750	$32,875	3.2
10	San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year	$76,134	47	$14,986	$12,278	1.3
11	University of Maryland-Baltimore County Baltimore, MD Public · 4-year	$75,493	33 †	$19,500	$16,467	1.7
12	University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year	$73,506	89	$14,753	$12,548	1.4
13	University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year	$72,988	88	$20,000	$17,354	2.0
14	University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year	$72,491	361	$17,359	$12,470	1.4
15	North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year	$71,136	42	$22,000	$17,303	1.9
16	University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year	$70,754	155	$11,000	$14,741	1.7
17	Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO Public · 4-year	$70,343	41	$21,500	$21,279	2.9
18	Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year	$69,875	41	$17,625	$11,297	1.3
19	New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$68,690	32 †	$20,746	$37,050	4.5
20	University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year	$68,488	32 †	$18,487	$25,346	3.6
21	California State University-Fullerton Fullerton, CA Public · 4-year	$68,170	109	$18,240	$6,555	0.8
22	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year	$67,925	82	$17,095	$13,138	1.6
23	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year	$67,783	53	$19,500	$16,778	2.2
24	Rowan University Glassboro, NJ Public · 4-year	$67,702	48	$19,000	$22,408	2.9
25	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year	$67,621	57	$24,000	$24,953	3.2
26	California State University-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year	$67,441	39 †	$16,156	$3,967	0.5
27	Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year	$67,381	25 †	$18,500	$17,339	2.2
28	California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year	$66,885	35 †	$16,500	$9,338	1.2
29	University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year	$66,862	40	$18,349	$16,674	2.2
30	University of Missouri-St Louis Saint Louis, MO Public · 4-year	$66,483	28 †	$23,850	$15,071	1.9
31	California State University-San Marcos San Marcos, CA Public · 4-year	$65,479	33 †	$20,983	$10,229	1.4
32	Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year	$64,830	34 †	$22,365	$16,805	2.2
33	Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year	$64,737	30 †	$17,779	$21,620	3.0
34	University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE Public · 4-year	$64,521	30 †	$19,300	$17,747	2.6
35	University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI Public · 4-year	$64,492	33 †	$22,775	$15,014	2.2
36	The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year	$64,145	125	$18,642	$19,857	2.7
37	Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$64,112	46	$25,000	$24,402	4.2
38	Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year	$63,419	39 †	$22,125	$19,680	2.8
39	University of Nevada-Reno Reno, NV Public · 4-year	$63,239	33 †	$14,024	$15,927	2.4
40	Iowa State University Ames, IA Public · 4-year	$63,026	26 †	$18,950	$18,589	2.9
41	Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year	$63,013	29 †	$22,718	$19,070	2.7
42	Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$62,319	27 †	$27,000	$37,730	5.8
43	University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Stevens Point, WI Public · 4-year	$61,349	25 †	$22,500	$14,559	2.4
44	University of Houston Houston, TX Public · 4-year	$61,122	40	$17,640	$14,276	2.2
45	University of Minnesota-Duluth Duluth, MN Public · 4-year	$61,010	33 †	$19,729	$18,743	3.2
46	Central Connecticut State University New Britain, CT Public · 4-year	$60,713	45	$23,750	$16,857	2.9
47	Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY Public · 4-year	$60,648	80	$18,250	$18,784	3.0
48	Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year	$60,501	184	$18,750	$14,967	2.5
49	University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA Public · 4-year	$59,549	78	$16,958	$14,304	2.5
50	University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year	$59,534	34 †	$20,750	$13,936	2.2

How this ranking is built

A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.

Which programs count: Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
Only bachelor's degree programs in Biochemistry and Biophysics (CIP 2602, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 59.
Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
What the numbers mean: Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
Payback: 4 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.; Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.

Read the full methodology

Top states for Biochemistry and Biophysics earnings

Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.

Median graduate earnings by state for Biochemistry and Biophysics
State	Median earnings	Ranked schools	Top school
New Jersey	$79,510	3	Montclair State University
Pennsylvania	$77,336	3	Temple University
California	$71,623	14	University of California-Santa Barbara
New York	$64,737	3	New York University
Wisconsin	$64,492	3	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Texas	$62,068	6	Texas State University

Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.

Highest-paying majors

All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college

Highest-Paying Colleges for Biochemistry and Biophysics (Bachelor's)

How this ranking is built

Top states for Biochemistry and Biophysics earnings

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