Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Biomedical Engineering (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering earn a median of $93,451 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $74,134 and $113,859. We rank the 91 U.S. colleges whose Biomedical Engineering programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 4,897 graduates in all. That puts Biomedical Engineering at #10 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, leads at $114,673, 22% above the median ranked school ($93,705). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $88,200 and $99,569, and the lowest earns $67,246, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 47 of the 91 ranked schools (52%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 11 public, 9 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Pennsylvania places 5 schools in the top 20, ahead of California (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $24,882 a year, against $18,809 across all 91 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,071 in federal loans, about 20% 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 1.4 years.
Showing the top 50 of 91 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $114,673 | 61 | $11,207 | $18,809 | 1.0 |
| 2 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $110,597 | 25 † | $14,896 | $13,481 | 0.7 |
| 3 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $109,648 | 38 † | — | $31,944 | 1.7 |
| 4 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $109,551 | 31 † | $18,400 | $21,565 | 1.2 |
| 5 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $109,232 | 83 | $20,500 | $16,665 | 0.9 |
| 6 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $106,260 | 45 | $26,000 | $36,931 | 2.1 |
| 7 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,921 | 57 | $13,894 | $29,612 | 1.6 |
| 8 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,415 | 50 | $13,750 | $32,740 | 1.9 |
| 9 | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,306 | 75 | $26,000 | $36,228 | 2.1 |
| 10 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $102,994 | 39 † | $16,833 | $29,167 | 1.7 |
| 11 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $102,755 | 136 | $21,375 | $12,116 | 0.7 |
| 12 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $102,544 | 51 | $21,071 | $19,857 | 1.2 |
| 13 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $102,342 | 72 | $18,969 | $13,138 | 0.8 |
| 14 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,362 | 127 | $29,666 | $38,509 | 2.4 |
| 15 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $101,175 | 71 | $25,752 | $17,799 | 1.1 |
| 16 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $101,101 | 49 | $27,000 | $28,198 | 1.7 |
| 17 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $100,930 | 29 † | $14,000 | $14,091 | 0.9 |
| 18 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,601 | 45 | $23,000 | $36,586 | 2.4 |
| 19 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $100,416 | 64 | $24,164 | $32,875 | 2.1 |
| 20 | Oregon State University Corvallis, OR Public · 4-year | $100,182 | 32 † | $21,500 | $19,604 | 1.2 |
| 21 | Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,842 | 70 | $27,000 | $41,346 | 2.6 |
| 22 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $99,762 | 68 | $20,492 | $17,354 | 1.1 |
| 23 | Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,617 | 70 | $27,000 | $34,170 | 2.3 |
| 24 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,521 | 44 | $27,000 | $38,793 | 2.4 |
| 25 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,024 | 113 | $25,500 | $24,402 | 1.7 |
| 26 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,997 | 35 † | $18,425 | $37,244 | 2.3 |
| 27 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $98,687 | 55 | $20,000 | $12,470 | 0.8 |
| 28 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $98,567 | 52 | $23,000 | $17,890 | 1.2 |
| 29 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $98,504 | 69 | $15,979 | $14,741 | 1.0 |
| 30 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year | $98,129 | 97 | $19,872 | $17,303 | 1.1 |
| 31 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC Public · 4-year | $97,992 | 61 | $15,000 | $11,655 | 0.7 |
| 32 | University of South Carolina-Columbia Columbia, SC Public · 4-year | $97,927 | 37 † | $23,000 | $22,811 | 1.4 |
| 33 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $97,926 | 25 † | $16,850 | $14,355 | 0.9 |
| 34 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $97,611 | 51 | $21,300 | $16,778 | 1.1 |
| 35 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $96,874 | 69 | $16,750 | $14,251 | 1.0 |
| 36 | University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI Public · 4-year | $96,532 | 57 | $26,234 | $21,440 | 1.5 |
| 37 | University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT Public · 4-year | $96,353 | 35 † | $19,476 | $16,200 | 1.1 |
| 38 | University of Rochester Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $95,957 | 46 | $20,500 | $29,278 | 1.9 |
| 39 | Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $95,728 | 82 | $26,975 | $31,487 | 2.2 |
| 40 | CUNY City College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $95,685 | 43 | — | $3,776 | 0.3 |
| 41 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $95,682 | 96 | $25,000 | $25,097 | 1.7 |
| 42 | Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO Public · 4-year | $95,142 | 62 | $23,370 | $28,690 | 2.1 |
| 43 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $94,859 | 47 | $19,500 | $21,620 | 1.5 |
| 44 | Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $94,168 | 50 | $23,250 | $41,190 | 2.8 |
| 45 | Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $94,103 | 54 | $28,308 | $34,906 | 2.4 |
| 46 | Clemson University Clemson, SC Public · 4-year | $93,705 | 83 | $21,375 | $22,253 | 1.5 |
| 47 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $93,533 | 37 † | $23,594 | $17,915 | 1.3 |
| 48 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $93,434 | 38 † | $19,500 | $14,600 | 1.0 |
| 49 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $93,305 | 68 | $19,000 | $21,315 | 1.5 |
| 50 | Milwaukee School of Engineering Milwaukee, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,229 | 44 | $27,000 | $22,453 | 1.6 |
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 Biomedical Engineering (CIP 1405, 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 91.
- 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 Biomedical Engineering 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania | $101,101 | 7 | Carnegie Mellon University |
| California | $98,567 | 9 | University of California-Berkeley |
| North Carolina | $98,129 | 3 | Duke University |
| Wisconsin | $95,728 | 3 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| New York | $95,272 | 8 | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Illinois | $93,152 | 4 | Northwestern University |
| Massachusetts | $92,806 | 5 | Wentworth Institute of Technology |
| Indiana | $90,484 | 3 | Purdue University-Main Campus |
| New Jersey | $89,123 | 4 | Stevens Institute of Technology |
| Florida | $88,656 | 5 | University of Miami |
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