Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Construction Management (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Construction Management earn a median of $95,124 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $77,072 and $115,179. We rank the 46 U.S. colleges whose Construction Management programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,700 graduates in all. That puts Construction Management at #8 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, in California, leads at $118,331, 26% above the median ranked school ($93,909). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $90,247 and $98,685, and the lowest earns $74,870, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 20 of the 46 ranked schools (43%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 17 public, 3 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 87% are public. The top 20 are spread across 15 states, with Arizona the most common (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $16,115 a year, against $16,283 across all 46 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,000 in federal loans, about 21% 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 46 of 46 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $118,331 | 96 | $18,500 | $16,665 | 0.8 |
| 2 | Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $111,195 | 169 | $27,000 | $34,170 | 1.9 |
| 3 | California State University-Chico Chico, CA Public · 4-year | $108,021 | 111 | $19,341 | $14,480 | 0.8 |
| 4 | Washington State University Pullman, WA Public · 4-year | $107,531 | 31 † | — | $14,971 | 0.9 |
| 5 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,887 | 35 † | $31,000 | $38,509 | 2.2 |
| 6 | Weber State University Ogden, UT Public · 4-year | $105,738 | 35 † | $15,928 | $10,258 | 0.6 |
| 7 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $103,060 | 90 | — | $14,967 | 0.9 |
| 8 | Minnesota State University-Mankato Mankato, MN Public · 4-year | $102,090 | 90 | $24,675 | $19,139 | 1.2 |
| 9 | University of Wisconsin-Stout Menomonie, WI Public · 4-year | $101,758 | 71 | $20,175 | $17,490 | 1.1 |
| 10 | Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ Public · 4-year | $99,015 | 44 | $22,589 | $14,158 | 0.9 |
| 11 | Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN Public · 4-year | $98,967 | 50 | $17,000 | $13,359 | 0.8 |
| 12 | Clemson University Clemson, SC Public · 4-year | $98,726 | 54 | $19,962 | $22,253 | 1.4 |
| 13 | Missouri State University-Springfield Springfield, MO Public · 4-year | $98,563 | 44 | $22,500 | $17,613 | 1.1 |
| 14 | University of Louisiana at Monroe Monroe, LA Public · 4-year | $98,336 | 38 † | $18,093 | $13,466 | 0.8 |
| 15 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,073 | 62 | $12,364 | $15,564 | 1.0 |
| 16 | Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA Public · 4-year | $97,651 | 57 | $24,120 | $18,476 | 1.3 |
| 17 | University of Central Missouri Warrensburg, MO Public · 4-year | $96,186 | 45 | $20,850 | $14,462 | 0.9 |
| 18 | University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, NE Public · 4-year | $95,682 | 28 † | $21,150 | $13,441 | 0.9 |
| 19 | Boise State University Boise, ID Public · 4-year | $95,250 | 53 | $23,250 | $21,610 | 1.5 |
| 20 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $95,165 | 106 | $27,000 | $24,953 | 1.7 |
| 21 | Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN Public · 4-year | $94,902 | 62 | $23,250 | $10,873 | 0.7 |
| 22 | Mississippi State University Mississippi State, MS Public · 4-year | $94,068 | 29 † | $30,500 | $17,595 | 1.1 |
| 23 | Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA Public · 4-year | $93,910 | 67 | $26,000 | $15,048 | 1.0 |
| 24 | Central Connecticut State University New Britain, CT Public · 4-year | $93,908 | 55 | $20,239 | $16,857 | 1.2 |
| 25 | Minnesota State University Moorhead Moorhead, MN Public · 4-year | $93,431 | 30 † | $14,748 | $17,997 | 1.3 |
| 26 | Roger Williams University Bristol, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,340 | 35 † | $25,745 | $37,999 | 2.9 |
| 27 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $91,947 | 56 | $19,500 | $16,778 | 1.2 |
| 28 | The University of Texas at Tyler Tyler, TX Public · 4-year | $91,845 | 26 † | $25,000 | $13,323 | 0.9 |
| 29 | Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $91,660 | 142 | $23,037 | $19,151 | 1.3 |
| 30 | Illinois State University Normal, IL Public · 4-year | $91,017 | 74 | $19,757 | $19,398 | 1.4 |
| 31 | Everglades University Boca Raton, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,526 | 105 | $37,936 | $27,371 | 1.9 |
| 32 | Ferris State University Big Rapids, MI Public · 4-year | $90,504 | 79 | $20,468 | $8,624 | 0.6 |
| 33 | Pittsburg State University Pittsburg, KS Public · 4-year | $90,321 | 44 | $21,684 | $15,784 | 1.1 |
| 34 | Pennsylvania College of Technology Williamsport, PA Public · 4-year | $90,272 | 26 † | $27,000 | $25,110 | 1.9 |
| 35 | Ball State University Muncie, IN Public · 4-year | $90,239 | 46 | $25,500 | $14,940 | 1.1 |
| 36 | Kent State University at Kent Kent, OH Public · 4-year | $89,959 | 55 | $22,500 | $20,787 | 1.5 |
| 37 | Eastern Kentucky University Richmond, KY Public · 4-year | $88,120 | 35 † | $24,500 | $11,040 | 0.8 |
| 38 | Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI Public · 4-year | $87,028 | 47 | $23,500 | $15,407 | 1.2 |
| 39 | Western Illinois University Macomb, IL Public · 4-year | $85,974 | 35 † | $24,656 | $12,937 | 1.0 |
| 40 | University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA Public · 4-year | $85,688 | 26 † | $18,000 | $15,901 | 1.3 |
| 41 | Northern Kentucky University Highland Heights, KY Public · 4-year | $81,833 | 41 | $17,875 | $8,191 | 0.7 |
| 42 | SUNY College of Technology at Delhi Delhi, NY Public · 4-year | $81,047 | 60 | $24,610 | $17,225 | 1.5 |
| 43 | Morgan State University Baltimore, MD Public · 4-year | $80,260 | 38 † | $26,000 | $14,985 | 1.4 |
| 44 | Appalachian State University Boone, NC Public · 4-year | $80,257 | 107 | $18,750 | $16,836 | 1.5 |
| 45 | Norwich University Northfield, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,175 | 30 † | $26,363 | $22,257 | 2.3 |
| 46 | SUNY College of Technology at Alfred Alfred, NY Public · 4-year | $74,870 | 41 | $24,375 | $15,016 | 1.5 |
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 Construction Management (CIP 5220, 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 46.
- 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 Construction Management 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minnesota | $93,431 | 3 | Minnesota State University-Mankato |
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