Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Biological and Physical Sciences (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Biological and Physical Sciences earn a median of $58,891 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $40,986 and $81,781. We rank the 20 U.S. colleges whose Biological and Physical Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 1,346 graduates in all. That puts Biological and Physical Sciences at #68 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Empire State University, in New York, leads at $71,066, 22% above the median ranked school ($58,221). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $54,623 and $65,534, and the lowest earns $41,759, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 9 of the 20 ranked schools (45%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 17 public, 3 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 85% are public. New York places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Pennsylvania (4).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $16,561 a year, against $16,561 across all 20 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,765 in federal loans, about 37% 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 4.0 years.
Showing the top 20 of 20 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Empire State University Saratoga Springs, NY Public · 4-year | $71,066 | 88 | — | $11,676 | 1.3 |
| 2 | Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA Public · 4-year | $71,028 | 46 | $26,000 | $16,804 | 1.9 |
| 3 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,101 | 36 † | $23,849 | $44,338 | 5.2 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $69,102 | 164 | $25,887 | $32,875 | 4.0 |
| 5 | Washington State University Pullman, WA Public · 4-year | $68,583 | 34 † | $18,853 | $14,971 | 2.1 |
| 6 | Bard College Annandale-On-Hudson, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,518 | 62 | $26,455 | $34,649 | 4.8 |
| 7 | CUNY Hunter College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $63,406 | 27 † | — | $2,984 | 0.4 |
| 8 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $62,698 | 129 | $23,815 | $30,434 | 4.6 |
| 9 | Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA Public · 4-year | $61,395 | 78 | $24,000 | $23,433 | 3.8 |
| 10 | University of Oregon Eugene, OR Public · 4-year | $58,319 | 78 | $21,500 | $22,182 | 4.2 |
| 11 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $58,123 | 28 † | $19,562 | $13,936 | 2.3 |
| 12 | Portland State University Portland, OR Public · 4-year | $57,303 | 119 | $21,720 | $9,552 | 1.9 |
| 13 | University of Houston-Downtown Houston, TX Public · 4-year | $56,995 | 70 | $21,765 | $10,542 | 1.9 |
| 14 | Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN Public · 4-year | $56,293 | 35 † | $17,626 | $13,359 | 2.5 |
| 15 | Whitworth University Spokane, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,534 | 53 | $25,000 | $26,534 | 7.1 |
| 16 | University of Alaska Anchorage Anchorage, AK Public · 4-year | $51,889 | 33 † | $17,258 | $15,301 | 6.8 |
| 17 | The Evergreen State College Olympia, WA Public · 4-year | $48,623 | 161 | $20,982 | $24,319 | 12.1 |
| 18 | Pennsylvania Western University California, PA Public · 4-year | $45,272 | 28 † | — | $18,256 | 8.3 |
| 19 | Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI Public · 4-year | $45,090 | 31 † | $27,000 | $16,317 | 6.3 |
| 20 | New College of Florida Sarasota, FL Public · 4-year | $41,759 | 46 | $16,655 | $7,195 | 3.9 |
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 Biological and Physical Sciences (CIP 3001, 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 20.
- 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.
Top states for Biological and Physical Sciences earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $67,310 | 4 | Empire State University |
| Pennsylvania | $65,900 | 4 | Indiana University of Pennsylvania |
| Washington | $55,534 | 3 | Washington State University |
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