Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Family and Consumer Sciences (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Family and Consumer Sciences earn a median of $48,460 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $34,712 and $63,003. We rank the 42 U.S. colleges whose Family and Consumer Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,520 graduates in all. That puts Family and Consumer Sciences at #117 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
SUNY Oneonta, in New York, leads at $60,550, 33% above the median ranked school ($45,368). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $41,296 and $51,737, and the lowest earns $34,318. 18 of the 42 ranked schools (43%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 20 public, 0 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 100% are public. California places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Illinois (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $15,985 a year, against $14,270 across all 42 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,250 in federal loans, about 41% 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 4.0 years.
Showing the top 42 of 42 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | SUNY Oneonta Oneonta, NY Public · 4-year | $60,550 | 197 | — | $19,158 | 3.1 |
| 2 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $58,530 | 67 | $16,702 | $12,278 | 2.3 |
| 3 | The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL Public · 4-year | $57,205 | 145 | $22,497 | $22,420 | 3.6 |
| 4 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $56,117 | 182 | $23,429 | $19,070 | 3.6 |
| 5 | California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year | $55,830 | 261 | $13,750 | $9,338 | 2.0 |
| 6 | California State University-Northridge Northridge, CA Public · 4-year | $55,327 | 223 | $16,375 | $7,021 | 1.5 |
| 7 | Western Illinois University Macomb, IL Public · 4-year | $54,059 | 29 † | — | $12,937 | 2.9 |
| 8 | Montana State University Bozeman, MT Public · 4-year | $52,702 | 172 | $23,646 | $22,499 | 4.5 |
| 9 | Montclair State University Montclair, NJ Public · 4-year | $52,511 | 111 | — | $15,566 | 4.0 |
| 10 | Minnesota State University-Mankato Mankato, MN Public · 4-year | $52,041 | 102 | $22,375 | $19,139 | 5.4 |
| 11 | Illinois State University Normal, IL Public · 4-year | $51,806 | 25 † | $19,653 | $19,398 | 4.9 |
| 12 | Iowa State University Ames, IA Public · 4-year | $51,531 | 33 † | $18,730 | $18,589 | 5.2 |
| 13 | California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA Public · 4-year | $50,361 | 481 | $12,956 | $10,440 | 3.1 |
| 14 | Sam Houston State University Huntsville, TX Public · 4-year | $49,840 | 27 † | $21,250 | $16,404 | 4.4 |
| 15 | Eastern Illinois University Charleston, IL Public · 4-year | $49,209 | 141 | $25,000 | $12,786 | 3.9 |
| 16 | Morgan State University Baltimore, MD Public · 4-year | $49,198 | 44 | $30,750 | $14,985 | 5.2 |
| 17 | CUNY Queens College Queens, NY Public · 4-year | $49,054 | 36 † | $10,750 | $4,195 | 1.3 |
| 18 | Southern University and A & M College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $48,596 | 30 † | $33,458 | $20,077 | 5.6 |
| 19 | University of Kentucky Lexington, KY Public · 4-year | $47,296 | 49 | $27,000 | $18,851 | 6.4 |
| 20 | University of New Mexico-Main Campus Albuquerque, NM Public · 4-year | $46,421 | 31 † | $19,233 | $15,489 | 4.4 |
| 21 | North Carolina Central University Durham, NC Public · 4-year | $46,136 | 120 | $28,375 | $15,359 | 5.1 |
| 22 | Stephen F Austin State University Nacogdoches, TX Public · 4-year | $44,600 | 142 | $25,000 | $14,260 | 5.8 |
| 23 | North Carolina A & T State University Greensboro, NC Public · 4-year | $43,937 | 41 | $27,000 | $10,846 | 4.4 |
| 24 | University of Maryland Eastern Shore Princess Anne, MD Public · 4-year | $43,492 | 45 | $27,000 | $13,338 | 9.0 |
| 25 | University of North Alabama Florence, AL Public · 4-year | $42,733 | 25 † | $21,811 | $12,170 | 4.6 |
| 26 | University of Central Arkansas Conway, AR Public · 4-year | $42,493 | 72 | $28,446 | $16,511 | 6.6 |
| 27 | Northwestern State University of Louisiana Natchitoches, LA Public · 4-year | $42,434 | 36 † | $27,250 | $13,606 | 6.7 |
| 28 | Jacksonville State University Jacksonville, AL Public · 4-year | $42,212 | 46 | $25,625 | $14,279 | 5.7 |
| 29 | University of Montevallo Montevallo, AL Public · 4-year | $42,038 | 26 † | — | $17,683 | 7.2 |
| 30 | Southeast Missouri State University Cape Girardeau, MO Public · 4-year | $41,619 | 88 | $23,000 | $15,882 | 9.3 |
| 31 | University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Pine Bluff, AR Public · 4-year | $41,327 | 33 † | $25,230 | $12,653 | 5.7 |
| 32 | Delta State University Cleveland, MS Public · 4-year | $41,285 | 33 † | $22,375 | $13,540 | 5.2 |
| 33 | Northeastern State University Tahlequah, OK Public · 4-year | $40,275 | 30 † | — | $12,710 | 9.3 |
| 34 | Nicholls State University Thibodaux, LA Public · 4-year | $40,241 | 41 | $28,250 | $12,947 | 8.8 |
| 35 | South Carolina State University Orangeburg, SC Public · 4-year | $40,050 | 40 | $32,625 | $18,097 | 13.8 |
| 36 | The University of Tennessee-Martin Martin, TN Public · 4-year | $39,914 | 30 † | $26,875 | $10,701 | 8.4 |
| 37 | Tennessee Technological University Cookeville, TN Public · 4-year | $39,565 | 90 | $18,000 | $14,246 | 12.0 |
| 38 | Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $38,968 | 40 | — | $19,151 | 16.6 |
| 39 | Southeastern Louisiana University Hammond, LA Public · 4-year | $38,514 | 66 | $23,757 | $13,154 | 12.6 |
| 40 | Fort Valley State University Fort Valley, GA Public · 4-year | $38,345 | 30 † | $34,000 | $10,338 | 9.1 |
| 41 | Southern Utah University Cedar City, UT Public · 4-year | $36,654 | 30 † | $12,917 | $10,462 | — |
| 42 | Pittsburg State University Pittsburg, KS Public · 4-year | $34,318 | 30 † | $23,750 | $15,784 | — |
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 Family and Consumer Sciences (CIP 1901, 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 42.
- 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 Family and Consumer 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $55,579 | 4 | San Francisco State University |
| Illinois | $51,806 | 3 | Western Illinois University |
| Texas | $49,840 | 3 | Texas Tech University |
| Alabama | $42,473 | 4 | The University of Alabama |
| Louisiana | $40,241 | 5 | Southern University and A & M College |
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