Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing

Highest-Paying Colleges for English (Bachelor's)

Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in English earn a median of $48,590 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $33,654 and $63,810. We rank the 378 U.S. colleges whose English programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 25,391 graduates in all. That puts English at #114 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.

Georgetown University, in District of Columbia, leads at $78,370, 60% above the median ranked school ($49,004). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $45,020 and $54,649, and the lowest earns $32,767, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 198 of the 378 ranked schools (52%) match or beat the national median.

Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 18 private nonprofit, 2 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 73% are public. Massachusetts places 5 schools in the top 20, ahead of New York (3).

The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $30,906 a year, against $17,249 across all 378 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,260 in federal loans, about 31% 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 4.1 years.

Showing the top 50 of 378 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.

Ranking table: Highest-Paying Colleges for English (Bachelor's)

1	Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year	$78,370	55	$16,000	$40,815	4.3
2	University of Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year	$78,169	37 †	—	$14,860	1.4
3	Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year	$77,847	27 †	$19,500	$28,719	2.6
4	College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$74,214	70	$27,000	$38,782	4.7
5	Brown University Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year	$73,497	33 †	$12,974	$25,184	3.0
6	George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year	$70,766	27 †	$23,250	$36,586	4.8
7	Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$70,141	80	$18,940	$41,704	5.7
8	Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$69,475	30 †	$14,670	$39,998	5.6
9	Williams College Williamstown, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$69,065	33 †	$13,125	$17,716	2.5
10	University of San Diego San Diego, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$68,752	31 †	$24,000	$30,365	3.8
11	Trinity College Hartford, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year	$68,063	31 †	$22,592	$34,832	4.6
12	Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$67,157	46	$26,899	$43,756	5.7
13	Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$66,806	68	$22,000	$48,381	6.5
14	Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$66,762	28 †	$21,000	$22,585	2.7
15	New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$66,306	78	$21,519	$37,050	4.8
16	Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year	$65,714	37 †	$24,188	$31,446	4.4
17	Amherst College Amherst, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$65,195	25 †	—	$23,367	3.9
18	Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$65,089	36 †	$16,300	$28,690	3.9
19	Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year	$64,555	147	$19,500	$21,620	3.0
20	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year	$64,225	98	$21,625	$24,953	3.6
21	Loyola University Maryland Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year	$63,919	26 †	$27,000	$30,574	4.6
22	Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$63,834	104	$27,000	$44,338	6.3
23	California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year	$63,413	51	$23,500	$16,665	2.5
24	Fairfield University Fairfield, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year	$62,527	44	$27,000	$48,095	7.8
25	Spelman College Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$62,425	35 †	$25,314	$38,967	5.4
26	Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year	$62,147	35 †	$15,450	$29,167	4.5
27	Assumption University Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$62,073	47	$27,000	$29,498	5.6
28	University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$61,989	40	$19,500	$28,699	4.5
29	St Lawrence University Canton, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$61,335	35 †	$26,000	$28,651	4.5
30	Barnard College New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$61,327	33 †	$18,558	$28,800	4.5
31	University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,998	42	$19,000	$26,780	4.4
32	Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,876	45	$26,242	$31,490	5.2
33	Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,602	59	$26,750	$38,793	6.2
34	New Jersey City University Jersey City, NJ Public · 4-year	$60,574	55	$23,401	$16,053	2.7
35	Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,461	31 †	$19,000	$39,343	6.4
36	Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,439	36 †	$15,050	$15,846	2.5
37	Monmouth University West Long Branch, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,220	72	$26,000	$30,988	5.3
38	University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year	$60,187	198	$12,979	$13,481	2.3
39	Stonehill College Easton, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$60,131	27 †	$24,237	$33,016	6.9
40	CUNY Bernard M Baruch College New York, NY Public · 4-year	$59,994	29 †	—	$3,033	0.5
41	Wellesley College Wellesley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,865	35 †	$10,925	$25,496	5.4
42	Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA Public · 4-year	$59,418	71	$19,375	$12,885	2.3
43	Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,396	44	$25,000	$21,590	3.7
44	University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,345	26 †	$3,500	$32,740	5.9
45	University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year	$59,334	143	$16,892	$16,109	2.9
46	University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year	$59,288	117	$19,500	$15,678	2.9
47	Siena University Loudonville, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,280	35 †	$27,000	$33,733	5.7
48	St. John's University-New York Queens, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,267	45	$27,000	$29,999	5.1
49	Gonzaga University Spokane, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year	$59,151	31 †	$27,000	$35,119	7.6
50	University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year	$59,012	179	$13,500	$14,741	2.7

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 English (CIP 2301, 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 378.
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.

Read the full methodology

Top states for English earnings

Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.

Median graduate earnings by state for English
State	Median earnings	Ranked schools	Top school
New Jersey	$56,715	13	Seton Hall University
Connecticut	$55,295	7	Trinity College
New York	$54,864	34	New York University
Rhode Island	$54,524	3	Brown University
Maryland	$53,906	9	Loyola University Maryland
California	$53,750	34	University of San Diego
Massachusetts	$53,143	24	College of the Holy Cross
Washington	$50,690	7	Gonzaga University
Pennsylvania	$50,299	19	Villanova University
Virginia	$50,255	14	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.

Highest-paying majors

All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college

Highest-Paying Colleges for English (Bachelor's)

How this ranking is built

Top states for English earnings

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