Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Computer Software and Media Applications (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Computer Software and Media Applications earn a median of $58,894 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $35,549 and $88,211. We rank the 32 U.S. colleges whose Computer Software and Media Applications programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,139 graduates in all. That puts Computer Software and Media Applications at #67 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, in Michigan, leads at $162,114, 166% above the median ranked school ($60,988). The gap between schools is wide: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $51,722 and $73,585, and the lowest earns $40,186, so for this major the school you graduate from matters a lot. 20 of the 32 ranked schools (63%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 10 public, 6 private nonprofit and 4 for-profit. The top 20 are spread across 14 states, with California the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $19,261 a year, against $20,335 across all 32 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $25,250 in federal loans, about 36% 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 32 of 32 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $162,114 | 45 | $19,230 | $13,138 | 0.4 |
| 2 | Park University Parkville, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,256 | 44 | — | $21,032 | 1.3 |
| 3 | Florida Polytechnic University Lakeland, FL Public · 4-year | $92,070 | 67 | $7,875 | $11,853 | 0.8 |
| 4 | Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $88,096 | 154 | $27,000 | $34,906 | 2.7 |
| 5 | University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Stevens Point, WI Public · 4-year | $84,809 | 39 † | $22,939 | $14,559 | 1.2 |
| 6 | University of Phoenix-Arizona Phoenix, AZ For-profit · 4-year | $81,636 | 53 | $43,911 | $13,520 | 1.2 |
| 7 | The New School New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,792 | 106 | $25,000 | $58,741 | 5.9 |
| 8 | University of Wisconsin-Stout Menomonie, WI Public · 4-year | $74,146 | 48 | $25,500 | $17,490 | 1.9 |
| 9 | Academy of Art University San Francisco, CA For-profit · 4-year | $73,398 | 138 | $36,750 | $40,613 | 4.5 |
| 10 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $71,462 | 30 † | $15,000 | $14,091 | 1.8 |
| 11 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $69,981 | 52 | $21,800 | $14,251 | 1.7 |
| 12 | Champlain College Burlington, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,795 | 41 | $27,000 | $35,860 | 4.7 |
| 13 | University of Silicon Valley San Jose, CA For-profit · 4-year | $67,659 | 26 † | $31,000 | $27,815 | 3.6 |
| 14 | School of Visual Arts New York, NY For-profit · 4-year | $67,483 | 178 | $27,000 | $57,914 | 7.3 |
| 15 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $61,892 | 58 | $22,198 | $16,674 | 2.6 |
| 16 | Utah Valley University Orem, UT Public · 4-year | $61,451 | 121 | — | $6,376 | 1.1 |
| 17 | New England Institute of Technology East Greenwich, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,524 | 29 † | $31,000 | $36,483 | 7.3 |
| 18 | Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,310 | 27 † | $26,950 | $37,730 | 6.3 |
| 19 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $59,769 | 71 | $19,739 | $21,315 | 3.4 |
| 20 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $59,766 | 125 | $20,101 | $14,600 | 2.5 |
| 21 | Baker College Owosso, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,655 | 26 † | $40,744 | $13,157 | 2.2 |
| 22 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,772 | 111 | $21,771 | $36,708 | 9.3 |
| 23 | College of Charleston Charleston, SC Public · 4-year | $52,596 | 27 † | $22,375 | $18,960 | 4.3 |
| 24 | Pennsylvania College of Technology Williamsport, PA Public · 4-year | $51,764 | 41 | $27,970 | $25,110 | 6.6 |
| 25 | University of Houston Houston, TX Public · 4-year | $51,596 | 77 | $22,500 | $14,276 | 3.4 |
| 26 | Wilmington University New Castle, DE Private nonprofit · 4-year | $50,722 | 36 † | $16,516 | $15,644 | 4.4 |
| 27 | Johnson & Wales University-Providence Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $50,374 | 48 | $27,000 | $31,027 | 12.5 |
| 28 | Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design Lakewood, CO For-profit · 4-year | $48,472 | 51 | $31,000 | $32,363 | 16.6 |
| 29 | Eastern Washington University Cheney, WA Public · 4-year | $46,104 | 81 | $20,296 | $13,886 | 10.1 |
| 30 | Lindenwood University Saint Charles, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $45,810 | 72 | $23,804 | $19,638 | 7.1 |
| 31 | Dakota State University Madison, SD Public · 4-year | $42,513 | 32 † | $27,000 | $21,057 | 15.2 |
| 32 | Berklee College of Music Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $40,186 | 85 | $24,250 | $49,465 | — |
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 Software and Media Applications (CIP 1108, 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 32.
- 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 Software and Media Applications 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 York | $75,792 | 3 | Rochester Institute of Technology |
| California | $69,981 | 3 | Academy of Art University |
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