Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Civil Engineering (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering earn a median of $86,517 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $73,883 and $101,174. We rank the 190 U.S. colleges whose Civil Engineering programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 14,815 graduates in all. That puts Civil Engineering at #18 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
University of California-Berkeley, in California, leads at $108,548, 27% above the median ranked school ($85,380). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $81,404 and $89,932, and the lowest earns $68,016, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 83 of the 190 ranked schools (44%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 13 public, 7 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. California places 12 schools in the top 20, ahead of New York (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $16,015 a year, against $17,347 across all 190 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,575 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 1.0 years.
Showing the top 50 of 190 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $108,548 | 80 | $14,342 | $13,481 | 0.8 |
| 2 | The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,466 | 29 † | — | $13,269 | 0.7 |
| 3 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $106,308 | 35 † | $8,125 | $32,740 | 1.9 |
| 4 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,199 | 29 † | — | $31,944 | 1.9 |
| 5 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,223 | 26 † | $27,000 | $48,381 | 2.9 |
| 6 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $101,072 | 185 | $20,424 | $16,665 | 1.0 |
| 7 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,613 | 73 | $24,750 | $30,915 | 2.1 |
| 8 | California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA Public · 4-year | $97,790 | 274 | $16,500 | $11,531 | 0.8 |
| 9 | California State University-Northridge Northridge, CA Public · 4-year | $97,123 | 75 | $19,834 | $7,021 | 0.5 |
| 10 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $97,092 | 49 | $17,529 | $12,548 | 0.8 |
| 11 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $96,354 | 118 | $17,816 | $14,251 | 1.0 |
| 12 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $95,939 | 161 | $16,000 | $14,741 | 1.0 |
| 13 | Manhattan University Riverdale, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $95,877 | 151 | $27,000 | $27,256 | 1.8 |
| 14 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $95,865 | 142 | $19,832 | $15,364 | 1.0 |
| 15 | California State University-Fullerton Fullerton, CA Public · 4-year | $95,854 | 117 | $13,274 | $6,555 | 0.4 |
| 16 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $95,271 | 117 | $19,875 | $19,857 | 1.3 |
| 17 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $94,960 | 37 † | $19,318 | $25,346 | 1.9 |
| 18 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $94,867 | 40 | $21,970 | $37,050 | 2.5 |
| 19 | California State University-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $94,760 | 88 | $16,500 | $3,967 | 0.3 |
| 20 | Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO Public · 4-year | $94,228 | 60 | $23,402 | $28,690 | 2.1 |
| 21 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $93,977 | 35 † | $26,500 | $27,646 | 1.9 |
| 22 | California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year | $93,973 | 197 | $18,000 | $9,338 | 0.7 |
| 23 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $93,856 | 86 | $20,787 | $17,915 | 1.3 |
| 24 | The Catholic University of America Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,821 | 27 † | $24,625 | $29,561 | 2.2 |
| 25 | Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,417 | 68 | $27,000 | $43,071 | 3.3 |
| 26 | Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,402 | 81 | $26,872 | $34,170 | 2.6 |
| 27 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $93,280 | 115 | $20,499 | $15,678 | 1.1 |
| 28 | Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY Public · 4-year | $92,908 | 52 | $16,500 | $18,784 | 1.3 |
| 29 | Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,609 | 67 | $27,000 | $41,346 | 3.0 |
| 30 | California State University-Chico Chico, CA Public · 4-year | $92,472 | 78 | $21,125 | $14,480 | 1.0 |
| 31 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $92,433 | 218 | $19,500 | $21,315 | 1.5 |
| 32 | University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $92,224 | 39 † | $29,605 | $11,900 | 0.9 |
| 33 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $92,010 | 104 | $15,000 | $14,091 | 1.1 |
| 34 | Washington State University Pullman, WA Public · 4-year | $91,879 | 118 | $20,780 | $14,971 | 1.2 |
| 35 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,856 | 36 † | $27,000 | $36,931 | 2.7 |
| 36 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $91,745 | 136 | $16,400 | $12,470 | 0.9 |
| 37 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $91,651 | 39 † | $14,400 | $21,565 | 1.6 |
| 38 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $91,650 | 142 | $19,000 | $14,355 | 1.0 |
| 39 | The University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Chattanooga, TN Public · 4-year | $91,615 | 35 † | $18,000 | $14,265 | 1.0 |
| 40 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $91,602 | 48 | $17,937 | $16,674 | 1.2 |
| 41 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,242 | 36 † | $12,500 | $28,690 | 2.1 |
| 42 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $90,894 | 72 | $17,500 | $12,278 | 0.9 |
| 43 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $90,873 | 97 | $19,500 | $14,600 | 1.1 |
| 44 | Merrimack College North Andover, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,714 | 26 † | $27,000 | $37,927 | 3.1 |
| 45 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $90,650 | 85 | $26,500 | $19,680 | 1.4 |
| 46 | University of Nevada-Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV Public · 4-year | $90,474 | 38 † | $20,225 | $10,359 | 0.8 |
| 47 | California Baptist University Riverside, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,251 | 32 † | $27,000 | $26,285 | 2.0 |
| 48 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $89,969 | 132 | $25,980 | $19,070 | 1.4 |
| 49 | Oregon State University Corvallis, OR Public · 4-year | $89,822 | 118 | $22,500 | $19,604 | 1.5 |
| 50 | University of Cincinnati-Main Campus Cincinnati, OH Public · 4-year | $89,653 | 73 | $24,500 | $25,648 | 1.9 |
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 Civil Engineering (CIP 1408, 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 190.
- 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 Civil 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $95,865 | 19 | University of California-Berkeley |
| Colorado | $93,226 | 4 | University of Colorado Boulder |
| New York | $90,119 | 10 | The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art |
| Washington | $89,411 | 4 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus |
| Massachusetts | $89,395 | 8 | Northeastern University |
| Arizona | $89,233 | 3 | University of Arizona |
| Virginia | $88,142 | 5 | George Mason University |
| Oregon | $87,766 | 4 | Oregon State University |
| New Jersey | $87,557 | 5 | The College of New Jersey |
| Texas | $87,473 | 10 | The University of Texas at Austin |
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