Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Computer Engineering (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering earn a median of $109,015 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $86,299 and $145,170. We rank the 131 U.S. colleges whose Computer Engineering programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 8,641 graduates in all. That puts Computer Engineering at #2 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
University of California-Los Angeles, in California, leads at $228,705, 116% above the median ranked school ($105,834). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $97,382 and $118,540, and the lowest earns $76,203, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 58 of the 131 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 7 schools in the top 20, ahead of Massachusetts (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $15,621 a year, against $17,163 across all 131 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,625 in federal loans, about 13% 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 0.6 years.
Showing the top 50 of 131 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $228,705 | 28 † | $13,500 | $12,548 | 0.3 |
| 2 | Princeton University Princeton, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $214,274 | 30 † | — | $6,128 | 0.1 |
| 3 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $174,522 | 73 | $14,500 | $29,612 | 0.8 |
| 4 | Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $163,765 | 69 | $24,833 | $50,062 | 1.6 |
| 5 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $159,855 | 210 | $20,500 | $14,355 | 0.5 |
| 6 | Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $156,885 | 31 † | — | $40,766 | 1.4 |
| 7 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $152,422 | 72 | $20,417 | $15,678 | 0.5 |
| 8 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $149,139 | 116 | $18,414 | $12,470 | 0.4 |
| 9 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $148,950 | 155 | $20,556 | $16,665 | 0.6 |
| 10 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $148,175 | 30 † | $16,875 | $21,565 | 0.8 |
| 11 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $145,422 | 103 | $12,703 | $14,741 | 0.5 |
| 12 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $144,703 | 56 | $14,410 | $16,109 | 0.6 |
| 13 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $142,071 | 84 | $19,500 | $13,138 | 0.5 |
| 14 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $135,416 | 101 | $25,002 | $30,915 | 1.3 |
| 15 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $135,394 | 84 | $25,984 | $24,402 | 1.0 |
| 16 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $133,111 | 30 † | $11,000 | $15,564 | 0.7 |
| 17 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $132,357 | 148 | $19,000 | $14,251 | 0.6 |
| 18 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $128,497 | 125 | $20,000 | $12,116 | 0.5 |
| 19 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $128,140 | 95 | $20,447 | $6,541 | 0.3 |
| 20 | Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY Public · 4-year | $128,038 | 55 | $19,750 | $18,784 | 0.8 |
| 21 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $127,201 | 45 | $19,000 | $37,050 | 1.6 |
| 22 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $127,042 | 102 | $21,750 | $21,315 | 0.9 |
| 23 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $124,641 | 82 | $23,434 | $17,890 | 0.8 |
| 24 | Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $124,037 | 87 | $26,930 | $41,346 | 1.9 |
| 25 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $123,731 | 249 | $19,500 | $17,339 | 0.8 |
| 26 | Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $123,027 | 203 | $28,000 | $34,906 | 1.6 |
| 27 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $122,026 | 139 | $25,929 | $24,953 | 1.2 |
| 28 | Utah Valley University Orem, UT Public · 4-year | $121,466 | 40 | $13,421 | $6,376 | 0.3 |
| 29 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $121,462 | 75 | $22,875 | $14,600 | 0.7 |
| 30 | Kettering University Flint, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $120,531 | 36 † | $29,984 | $34,660 | 1.6 |
| 31 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $120,068 | 58 | — | $17,354 | 0.8 |
| 32 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $119,781 | 67 | $22,350 | $16,778 | 0.8 |
| 33 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $119,137 | 51 | $26,000 | $43,756 | 2.1 |
| 34 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $117,942 | 39 † | $25,500 | $17,915 | 0.9 |
| 35 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $117,721 | 51 | $19,000 | $21,620 | 1.1 |
| 36 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $117,537 | 121 | $27,000 | $38,509 | 1.9 |
| 37 | CUNY City College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $117,131 | 56 | — | $3,776 | 0.2 |
| 38 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $116,842 | 62 | $17,249 | $15,364 | 0.8 |
| 39 | University of Dayton Dayton, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $116,356 | 29 † | $26,090 | $29,533 | 1.5 |
| 40 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $115,181 | 36 † | $23,338 | $25,346 | 1.4 |
| 41 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $115,117 | 132 | $20,134 | $25,097 | 1.3 |
| 42 | Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $114,930 | 25 † | $26,000 | $18,425 | 0.9 |
| 43 | University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT Public · 4-year | $114,197 | 28 † | $18,970 | $16,200 | 0.9 |
| 44 | University of Maryland-Baltimore County Baltimore, MD Public · 4-year | $113,299 | 54 | $19,744 | $16,467 | 0.9 |
| 45 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year | $113,083 | 60 | $27,000 | $22,383 | 1.2 |
| 46 | The University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, TX Public · 4-year | $112,666 | 173 | $21,375 | $18,267 | 0.9 |
| 47 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $112,543 | 269 | $25,000 | $14,967 | 0.8 |
| 48 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $112,269 | 129 | $26,471 | $32,875 | 1.7 |
| 49 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $111,388 | 43 | $26,363 | $17,799 | 1.0 |
| 50 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $110,988 | 32 † | — | $38,793 | 2.1 |
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 Engineering (CIP 1409, 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 131.
- 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 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | $124,037 | 3 | Princeton University |
| Virginia | $122,026 | 3 | University of Virginia-Main Campus |
| Utah | $121,466 | 3 | Brigham Young University |
| Pennsylvania | $114,903 | 6 | Bucknell University |
| New York | $114,060 | 10 | Stony Brook University |
| Massachusetts | $113,083 | 5 | Northeastern University |
| North Carolina | $110,416 | 3 | Duke University |
| Texas | $106,577 | 8 | Texas A&M University-College Station |
| California | $105,794 | 20 | University of California-Los Angeles |
| Michigan | $104,627 | 5 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
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