Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Computer and Information Sciences (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Computer and Information Sciences earn a median of $92,374 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $64,179 and $128,180. We rank the 303 U.S. colleges whose Computer and Information Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 35,605 graduates in all. That puts Computer and Information Sciences at #12 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
University of Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania, leads at $241,380, 178% above the median ranked school ($86,698). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $76,879 and $100,191, and the lowest earns $45,214. 119 of the 303 ranked schools (39%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 9 public, 11 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. The top 20 are spread across 11 states, with New York the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $22,671 a year, against $16,805 across all 303 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $16,399 in federal loans, about 11% 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 0.7 years.
Showing the top 50 of 303 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $241,380 | 40 | $15,000 | $28,699 | 0.6 |
| 2 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $216,722 | 136 | $15,156 | $12,548 | 0.3 |
| 3 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $196,467 | 58 | $12,750 | $18,809 | 0.5 |
| 4 | Yale University New Haven, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $188,157 | 31 † | $15,000 | $23,777 | 0.6 |
| 5 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $187,437 | 43 | — | $31,944 | 0.8 |
| 6 | Rice University Houston, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $182,443 | 57 | $12,373 | $13,370 | 0.4 |
| 7 | Wellesley College Wellesley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $177,213 | 32 † | $13,350 | $25,496 | 0.7 |
| 8 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $172,904 | 665 | $19,475 | $13,138 | 0.4 |
| 9 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $163,708 | 243 | $22,583 | $30,915 | 1.0 |
| 10 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $155,168 | 292 | $20,500 | $19,857 | 0.7 |
| 11 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $150,628 | 451 | $20,500 | $12,116 | 0.4 |
| 12 | Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY Public · 4-year | $147,064 | 258 | $16,250 | $18,784 | 0.7 |
| 13 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $144,501 | 188 | — | $15,678 | 0.6 |
| 14 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $144,389 | 115 | $15,500 | $28,690 | 1.1 |
| 15 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $144,103 | 253 | $20,500 | $24,953 | 0.9 |
| 16 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $142,970 | 113 | $19,000 | $26,780 | 1.0 |
| 17 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $142,495 | 376 | $19,500 | $37,050 | 1.4 |
| 18 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $142,041 | 201 | $16,547 | $21,565 | 0.8 |
| 19 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $138,673 | 277 | $14,000 | $14,741 | 0.6 |
| 20 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $130,585 | 55 | $26,000 | $43,756 | 1.9 |
| 21 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $129,401 | 40 | — | $21,315 | 0.9 |
| 22 | Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $128,703 | 25 † | $23,534 | $19,589 | 0.9 |
| 23 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $127,011 | 43 | $26,000 | $48,381 | 2.1 |
| 24 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $126,268 | 201 | $15,000 | $6,541 | 0.3 |
| 25 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $125,303 | 531 | $20,904 | $24,406 | 1.1 |
| 26 | Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $124,469 | 37 † | $17,037 | $39,343 | 1.8 |
| 27 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $120,773 | 64 | $27,000 | $38,793 | 1.8 |
| 28 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $120,729 | 171 | $25,000 | $32,875 | 1.6 |
| 29 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $119,655 | 226 | $20,500 | $17,354 | 0.8 |
| 30 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $118,833 | 58 | $21,076 | $17,339 | 0.8 |
| 31 | Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA Public · 4-year | $118,521 | 98 | $19,933 | $23,433 | 1.1 |
| 32 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $117,412 | 37 † | $19,500 | $25,097 | 1.3 |
| 33 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $116,999 | 31 † | $24,019 | $36,931 | 1.8 |
| 34 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $116,905 | 244 | $22,500 | $19,680 | 1.0 |
| 35 | University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE Public · 4-year | $116,221 | 80 | $20,500 | $17,747 | 0.9 |
| 36 | The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL Public · 4-year | $115,980 | 73 | $21,992 | $22,420 | 1.1 |
| 37 | Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, NJ Public · 4-year | $115,174 | 30 † | $21,500 | $18,173 | 0.9 |
| 38 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $114,798 | 546 | $15,127 | $14,091 | 0.8 |
| 39 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO Public · 4-year | $114,076 | 151 | $21,569 | $21,279 | 1.2 |
| 40 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $113,338 | 59 | $13,500 | $15,564 | 0.8 |
| 41 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $113,062 | 89 | $19,500 | $19,070 | 1.0 |
| 42 | University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $112,754 | 51 | $20,500 | $11,900 | 0.7 |
| 43 | University of New Mexico-Main Campus Albuquerque, NM Public · 4-year | $112,064 | 38 † | $22,774 | $15,489 | 0.8 |
| 44 | Bentley University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $111,853 | 54 | $25,250 | $37,930 | 2.1 |
| 45 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $111,520 | 113 | $25,261 | $17,799 | 0.9 |
| 46 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $110,754 | 626 | $21,000 | $17,915 | 1.0 |
| 47 | Utah State University Logan, UT Public · 4-year | $110,414 | 112 | $16,500 | $14,936 | 0.8 |
| 48 | Western Washington University Bellingham, WA Public · 4-year | $110,138 | 133 | $18,583 | $21,193 | 1.2 |
| 49 | Macalester College Saint Paul, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $109,457 | 28 † | $21,500 | $32,149 | 1.8 |
| 50 | Western Governors University Salt Lake City, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,836 | 1,982 | $16,625 | $12,548 | 0.7 |
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 Computer and Information Sciences (CIP 1101, 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 303.
- 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 Computer and Information 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utah | $110,414 | 3 | Brigham Young University |
| Washington | $110,138 | 5 | Pacific Lutheran University |
| Nebraska | $104,314 | 3 | University of Nebraska-Lincoln |
| Colorado | $101,979 | 4 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins |
| Texas | $97,759 | 20 | Rice University |
| Maryland | $95,758 | 8 | Johns Hopkins University |
| New Mexico | $95,750 | 3 | University of New Mexico-Main Campus |
| Virginia | $95,485 | 11 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Massachusetts | $94,554 | 8 | Wellesley College |
| Wisconsin | $93,633 | 9 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
-
Computer and Information Sciences (Associate)
Same major, Associate level
$54,246 national median · 44 schools
-
Computer Science (Bachelor's)
$107,009 national median · 246 schools
-
Information Science (Bachelor's)
$85,294 national median · 73 schools
-
IT Administration and Management (Bachelor's)
$85,063 national median · 61 schools
-
Computer Software and Media Applications (Bachelor's)
$58,894 national median · 32 schools
-
Statistics (Bachelor's)
$92,425 national median · 30 schools
-
Mechanical Engineering (Bachelor's)
$92,135 national median · 271 schools
-
Applied Mathematics (Bachelor's)
$91,532 national median · 27 schools
All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college