Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Geography (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Geography earn a median of $57,853 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $42,482 and $75,644. We rank the 54 U.S. colleges whose Geography programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,377 graduates in all. That puts Geography at #72 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in Illinois, leads at $75,877, 31% above the median ranked school ($57,903). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $54,397 and $64,615, and the lowest earns $48,280, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 27 of the 54 ranked schools (50%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 18 public, 2 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 94% are public. California places 5 schools in the top 20, ahead of Texas (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $15,894 a year, against $16,053 across all 54 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $18,750 in federal loans, about 29% 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 2.4 years.
Showing the top 50 of 54 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Edwardsville, IL Public · 4-year | $75,877 | 29 † | $18,750 | $14,889 | 1.5 |
| 2 | California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year | $75,234 | 36 † | $15,974 | $9,338 | 1.0 |
| 3 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,985 | 26 † | — | $29,519 | 3.8 |
| 4 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $71,207 | 35 † | $20,500 | $21,620 | 2.4 |
| 5 | California State University-Northridge Northridge, CA Public · 4-year | $69,323 | 33 † | $12,500 | $7,021 | 0.9 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $68,993 | 32 † | $26,000 | $32,875 | 4.0 |
| 7 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $67,521 | 72 | $14,000 | $16,109 | 2.1 |
| 8 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $67,276 | 34 † | $16,407 | $6,541 | 0.8 |
| 9 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $67,193 | 124 | $13,296 | $12,548 | 1.7 |
| 10 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $65,759 | 120 | $24,293 | $14,967 | 2.0 |
| 11 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $65,259 | 48 | $19,500 | $24,953 | 3.5 |
| 12 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $65,228 | 65 | $16,479 | $21,315 | 2.8 |
| 13 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $64,950 | 71 | $17,501 | $14,091 | 2.3 |
| 14 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,875 | 43 | $11,210 | $15,564 | 2.4 |
| 15 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $63,835 | 68 | $23,250 | $15,678 | 2.4 |
| 16 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $63,768 | 60 | $19,500 | $23,322 | 3.4 |
| 17 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $63,590 | 35 † | $16,359 | $12,278 | 1.8 |
| 18 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $62,438 | 71 | $21,500 | $19,857 | 2.9 |
| 19 | Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year | $60,646 | 84 | $20,123 | $16,805 | 2.6 |
| 20 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $60,363 | 89 | $20,500 | $17,339 | 2.9 |
| 21 | SUNY College at Geneseo Geneseo, NY Public · 4-year | $59,528 | 26 † | $14,575 | $18,211 | 3.1 |
| 22 | University of South Carolina-Columbia Columbia, SC Public · 4-year | $59,472 | 25 † | $21,500 | $22,811 | 3.7 |
| 23 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $59,424 | 42 | $18,689 | $17,354 | 3.2 |
| 24 | Salem State University Salem, MA Public · 4-year | $58,593 | 33 † | $21,500 | $15,996 | 3.6 |
| 25 | Salisbury University Salisbury, MD Public · 4-year | $58,548 | 37 † | $25,000 | $17,743 | 3.4 |
| 26 | Appalachian State University Boone, NC Public · 4-year | $58,289 | 27 † | $18,125 | $16,836 | 2.8 |
| 27 | University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI Public · 4-year | $58,129 | 51 | $21,001 | $16,550 | 3.2 |
| 28 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $57,677 | 26 † | $16,500 | $25,346 | 6.0 |
| 29 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI Public · 4-year | $57,604 | 41 | $22,361 | $15,014 | 3.0 |
| 30 | Rowan University Glassboro, NJ Public · 4-year | $57,567 | 50 | $22,500 | $22,408 | 4.4 |
| 31 | California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA Public · 4-year | $57,424 | 44 | $13,000 | $11,531 | 2.3 |
| 32 | University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $57,285 | 45 | $21,500 | $11,900 | 2.9 |
| 33 | University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC Public · 4-year | $57,208 | 34 † | $22,750 | $15,435 | 2.7 |
| 34 | West Virginia University Morgantown, WV Public · 4-year | $57,075 | 26 † | $23,089 | $15,634 | 2.7 |
| 35 | University of Louisville Louisville, KY Public · 4-year | $56,775 | 28 † | — | $17,988 | 3.4 |
| 36 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $56,515 | 25 † | — | $19,680 | 3.6 |
| 37 | Ohio University-Main Campus Athens, OH Public · 4-year | $56,381 | 42 | $26,000 | $21,637 | 4.3 |
| 38 | University of Oregon Eugene, OR Public · 4-year | $56,165 | 34 † | $18,917 | $22,182 | 4.6 |
| 39 | Minnesota State University-Mankato Mankato, MN Public · 4-year | $56,022 | 28 † | — | $19,139 | 4.2 |
| 40 | The University of Tennessee-Knoxville Knoxville, TN Public · 4-year | $54,656 | 35 † | $24,500 | $18,976 | 3.8 |
| 41 | Portland State University Portland, OR Public · 4-year | $54,310 | 28 † | $21,771 | $9,552 | 2.2 |
| 42 | Ball State University Muncie, IN Public · 4-year | $53,992 | 29 † | $24,750 | $14,940 | 3.4 |
| 43 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $53,666 | 37 † | $19,750 | $16,778 | 4.2 |
| 44 | Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA Public · 4-year | $53,044 | 26 † | $35,625 | $15,048 | 3.1 |
| 45 | University of North Texas Denton, TX Public · 4-year | $52,712 | 43 | $18,275 | $15,649 | 3.5 |
| 46 | Macalester College Saint Paul, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $52,557 | 31 † | $19,049 | $32,149 | 8.7 |
| 47 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $52,537 | 32 † | $26,707 | $11,297 | 2.5 |
| 48 | University of North Alabama Florence, AL Public · 4-year | $50,445 | 34 † | $29,750 | $12,170 | 2.7 |
| 49 | Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI Public · 4-year | $49,921 | 29 † | $22,250 | $15,273 | 4.0 |
| 50 | Pennsylvania Western University California, PA Public · 4-year | $49,517 | 31 † | — | $18,256 | 5.6 |
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 Geography (CIP 4507, 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 54.
- 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 Geography 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 | $67,193 | 7 | California State University-Sacramento |
| Virginia | $63,768 | 3 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Texas | $61,542 | 4 | Texas A&M University-College Station |
| Wisconsin | $58,129 | 3 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Colorado | $57,285 | 3 | University of Colorado Boulder |
| North Carolina | $57,208 | 3 | Appalachian State University |
| Minnesota | $53,666 | 3 | Minnesota State University-Mankato |
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