Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Biology (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Biology earn a median of $57,214 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $38,929 and $79,199. We rank the 599 U.S. colleges whose Biology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 47,688 graduates in all. That puts Biology at #75 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Carlow University, in Pennsylvania, leads at $134,677, 132% above the median ranked school ($58,051). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $52,191 and $63,296, and the lowest earns $33,981, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 323 of the 599 ranked schools (54%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 17 private nonprofit, 3 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 63% are public. Massachusetts places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of California (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $29,997 a year, against $17,760 across all 599 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $23,887 in federal loans, about 29% 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 2.6 years.
Showing the top 50 of 599 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Carlow University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $134,677 | 44 | $27,000 | $20,786 | 0.8 |
| 2 | Providence College Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,757 | 45 | $27,000 | $48,523 | 3.6 |
| 3 | Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,200 | 175 | $20,276 | $31,446 | 2.2 |
| 4 | College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,914 | 28 † | $27,000 | $38,782 | 3.0 |
| 5 | University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,888 | 47 | $20,500 | $15,232 | 1.1 |
| 6 | Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $88,921 | 136 | $24,524 | $31,487 | 2.5 |
| 7 | Assumption University Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,706 | 28 † | $27,000 | $29,498 | 2.8 |
| 8 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,614 | 95 | $19,000 | $41,704 | 3.9 |
| 9 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,192 | 39 † | $12,500 | $29,612 | 2.4 |
| 10 | Auburn University Auburn, AL Public · 4-year | $83,053 | 176 | $23,250 | $24,323 | 1.9 |
| 11 | University of the Pacific Stockton, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,012 | 75 | $21,500 | $25,447 | 2.2 |
| 12 | Saint Joseph's University - Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $82,769 | 82 | $25,919 | $29,689 | 2.6 |
| 13 | Marist University Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $81,936 | 38 † | $25,494 | $41,544 | 3.6 |
| 14 | University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI Public · 4-year | $80,379 | 158 | $22,250 | $21,440 | 2.1 |
| 15 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,317 | 31 † | $23,250 | $48,381 | 4.5 |
| 16 | New York Institute of Technology Old Westbury, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,208 | 86 | $19,500 | $22,443 | 2.0 |
| 17 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $79,163 | 103 | $13,000 | $13,481 | 1.3 |
| 18 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,327 | 72 | $24,802 | $30,915 | 3.3 |
| 19 | Loyola University Maryland Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,861 | 37 † | $27,000 | $30,574 | 3.0 |
| 20 | Clarkson University Potsdam, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,791 | 40 | $26,240 | $30,305 | 2.9 |
| 21 | Le Moyne College Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,609 | 116 | $25,197 | $22,277 | 2.1 |
| 22 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $77,076 | 219 | $26,250 | $23,805 | 2.7 |
| 23 | Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,782 | 55 | $16,250 | $39,998 | 4.5 |
| 24 | University of Massachusetts-Lowell Lowell, MA Public · 4-year | $76,149 | 143 | $22,750 | $17,163 | 2.0 |
| 25 | DeSales University Center Valley, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,125 | 34 † | $25,000 | $31,643 | 3.2 |
| 26 | Westmont College Santa Barbara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,889 | 25 † | $23,250 | $29,053 | 3.0 |
| 27 | Touro University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,886 | 59 | $17,250 | $29,627 | 3.0 |
| 28 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $75,531 | 52 | $19,500 | $27,646 | 2.9 |
| 29 | Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,018 | 36 † | $26,950 | $43,071 | 5.1 |
| 30 | Felician University Lodi, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,746 | 30 † | $26,250 | $40,045 | 4.2 |
| 31 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $74,535 | 114 | $24,235 | $17,799 | 1.9 |
| 32 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $74,204 | 57 | $15,000 | $12,278 | 1.3 |
| 33 | California State University-East Bay Hayward, CA Public · 4-year | $74,010 | 125 | $18,272 | $9,320 | 1.0 |
| 34 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,933 | 42 | $27,000 | $43,756 | 4.7 |
| 35 | Widener University Chester, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,535 | 38 † | $26,000 | $25,759 | 2.8 |
| 36 | Siena University Loudonville, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,491 | 29 † | $27,000 | $33,733 | 3.6 |
| 37 | Arcadia University Glenside, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,377 | 98 | $27,000 | $29,466 | 3.2 |
| 38 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,136 | 43 | $26,000 | $44,338 | 4.7 |
| 39 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year | $72,726 | 165 | $24,250 | $22,383 | 2.8 |
| 40 | Keene State College Keene, NH Public · 4-year | $72,593 | 39 † | $25,325 | $17,887 | 2.3 |
| 41 | Sacred Heart University Fairfield, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,404 | 42 | $23,250 | $46,174 | 5.3 |
| 42 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,197 | 86 | $27,000 | $38,509 | 4.3 |
| 43 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $72,134 | 140 | $25,065 | $28,198 | 3.2 |
| 44 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $72,037 | 70 | $25,000 | $28,384 | 3.2 |
| 45 | University of Saint Francis-Fort Wayne Fort Wayne, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,008 | 27 † | $27,000 | $18,196 | 2.0 |
| 46 | SUNY Oneonta Oneonta, NY Public · 4-year | $71,874 | 143 | $19,813 | $19,158 | 2.1 |
| 47 | California State University-Chico Chico, CA Public · 4-year | $71,726 | 52 | $17,600 | $14,480 | 1.7 |
| 48 | Roger Williams University Bristol, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,652 | 36 † | $27,000 | $37,999 | 4.9 |
| 49 | Virginia Military Institute Lexington, VA Public · 4-year | $71,547 | 34 † | $21,250 | $17,113 | 2.0 |
| 50 | Farmingdale State College Farmingdale, NY Public · 4-year | $71,533 | 85 | $14,500 | $10,867 | 1.2 |
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 Biology (CIP 2601, 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 599.
- 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 Biology 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 Hampshire | $72,593 | 3 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus |
| Connecticut | $69,212 | 8 | Sacred Heart University |
| Rhode Island | $68,499 | 6 | Providence College |
| Massachusetts | $66,684 | 24 | College of the Holy Cross |
| New Jersey | $65,807 | 17 | Seton Hall University |
| New York | $63,206 | 45 | Marist University |
| Pennsylvania | $63,032 | 36 | Carlow University |
| Iowa | $62,396 | 8 | Wartburg College |
| California | $61,790 | 42 | University of the Pacific |
| Minnesota | $60,786 | 14 | Concordia College at Moorhead |
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