Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Geology and Earth Sciences (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Geology and Earth Sciences earn a median of $60,190 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $44,343 and $77,573. We rank the 65 U.S. colleges whose Geology and Earth Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,958 graduates in all. That puts Geology and Earth Sciences at #62 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
The University of Texas at Austin, in Texas, leads at $83,481, 37% above the median ranked school ($60,949). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $55,018 and $67,208, and the lowest earns $45,002. 37 of the 65 ranked schools (57%) 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, 98% are public. California places 7 schools in the top 20, ahead of Texas (4).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $15,499 a year, against $16,550 across all 65 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,375 in federal loans, about 28% 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 1.9 years.
Showing the top 50 of 65 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $83,481 | 49 | $16,993 | $19,857 | 1.6 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $81,092 | 135 | $25,648 | $32,875 | 2.9 |
| 3 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $74,594 | 136 | $18,686 | $21,315 | 2.1 |
| 4 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $74,591 | 62 | $25,250 | $19,070 | 1.9 |
| 5 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $73,647 | 34 † | $21,500 | $15,364 | 1.7 |
| 6 | California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year | $73,418 | 32 † | $15,000 | $9,338 | 1.0 |
| 7 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $73,337 | 33 † | $16,000 | $14,741 | 1.6 |
| 8 | California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA Public · 4-year | $73,305 | 25 † | $19,375 | $11,531 | 1.3 |
| 9 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO Public · 4-year | $71,631 | 45 | $22,250 | $21,279 | 2.7 |
| 10 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $70,820 | 36 † | $14,916 | $14,251 | 1.7 |
| 11 | California State University-Bakersfield Bakersfield, CA Public · 4-year | $69,989 | 34 † | — | $5,652 | 0.7 |
| 12 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $69,943 | 27 † | $19,737 | $6,541 | 0.7 |
| 13 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $69,227 | 45 | $15,000 | $16,665 | 2.1 |
| 14 | University of Wyoming Laramie, WY Public · 4-year | $68,883 | 49 | $18,960 | $13,599 | 1.8 |
| 15 | University of Houston Houston, TX Public · 4-year | $68,127 | 61 | $24,875 | $14,276 | 1.7 |
| 16 | Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $67,493 | 65 | $19,500 | $19,151 | 2.3 |
| 17 | Western Washington University Bellingham, WA Public · 4-year | $67,208 | 60 | $22,969 | $21,193 | 3.2 |
| 18 | Ohio University-Main Campus Athens, OH Public · 4-year | $66,922 | 32 † | $18,500 | $21,637 | 2.8 |
| 19 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $66,845 | 62 | $19,000 | $14,091 | 2.1 |
| 20 | West Virginia University Morgantown, WV Public · 4-year | $66,798 | 70 | $22,719 | $15,634 | 1.9 |
| 21 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $66,788 | 41 | $16,298 | $16,109 | 2.2 |
| 22 | Montclair State University Montclair, NJ Public · 4-year | $65,826 | 27 † | $21,750 | $15,566 | 2.2 |
| 23 | The University of Texas at Arlington Arlington, TX Public · 4-year | $65,294 | 31 † | $25,000 | $13,951 | 1.8 |
| 24 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $64,499 | 32 † | $20,833 | $17,890 | 2.6 |
| 25 | College of Charleston Charleston, SC Public · 4-year | $63,993 | 32 † | $22,659 | $18,960 | 2.6 |
| 26 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI Public · 4-year | $63,838 | 33 † | $26,500 | $15,014 | 2.3 |
| 27 | Eastern Connecticut State University Willimantic, CT Public · 4-year | $63,566 | 27 † | $24,124 | $21,067 | 3.3 |
| 28 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $62,448 | 40 | $28,869 | $19,680 | 2.8 |
| 29 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,360 | 61 | $20,875 | $36,708 | 7.2 |
| 30 | Mississippi State University Mississippi State, MS Public · 4-year | $62,082 | 76 | $21,500 | $17,595 | 2.3 |
| 31 | University of Illinois Chicago Chicago, IL Public · 4-year | $61,206 | 31 † | $21,500 | $10,974 | 1.7 |
| 32 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year | $61,023 | 41 | $20,029 | $17,303 | 2.6 |
| 33 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $60,949 | 34 † | $17,875 | $13,138 | 2.0 |
| 34 | University of South Florida Tampa, FL Public · 4-year | $60,472 | 39 † | $24,405 | $9,812 | 1.5 |
| 35 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $60,453 | 42 | $19,500 | $25,346 | 5.1 |
| 36 | University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, NC Public · 4-year | $60,414 | 34 † | $22,995 | $20,109 | 3.1 |
| 37 | Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ Public · 4-year | $60,402 | 27 † | $21,251 | $14,158 | 2.4 |
| 38 | Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania Bloomsburg, PA Public · 4-year | $60,075 | 94 | $27,000 | $15,699 | 2.7 |
| 39 | University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY Public · 4-year | $59,841 | 76 | $19,750 | $20,995 | 3.5 |
| 40 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $59,558 | 36 † | $19,500 | $28,384 | 4.8 |
| 41 | California State University-Fullerton Fullerton, CA Public · 4-year | $58,891 | 33 † | $16,625 | $6,555 | 1.2 |
| 42 | University of Houston-Downtown Houston, TX Public · 4-year | $57,892 | 28 † | $18,529 | $10,542 | 1.8 |
| 43 | Pennsylvania Western University California, PA Public · 4-year | $57,549 | 41 | — | $18,256 | 3.5 |
| 44 | The University of Texas at San Antonio San Antonio, TX Public · 4-year | $57,540 | 36 † | $18,500 | $10,836 | 1.9 |
| 45 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $57,456 | 122 | $25,000 | $30,434 | 5.8 |
| 46 | University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI Public · 4-year | $56,739 | 32 † | $21,000 | $16,550 | 3.5 |
| 47 | Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN Public · 4-year | $56,405 | 28 † | $25,789 | $13,359 | 2.5 |
| 48 | Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania Slippery Rock, PA Public · 4-year | $56,402 | 33 † | $25,875 | $19,608 | 3.9 |
| 49 | SUNY College at Geneseo Geneseo, NY Public · 4-year | $55,018 | 26 † | $22,287 | $18,211 | 3.8 |
| 50 | Boise State University Boise, ID Public · 4-year | $53,995 | 29 † | $25,360 | $21,610 | 4.9 |
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 Geology and Earth Sciences (CIP 4006, 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 65.
- 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 Geology and Earth 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 | $69,989 | 11 | San Diego State University |
| Texas | $68,127 | 7 | The University of Texas at Austin |
| Washington | $66,845 | 3 | Western Washington University |
| Pennsylvania | $57,503 | 6 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus |
| North Carolina | $56,842 | 4 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh |
| Wisconsin | $56,739 | 3 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee |
| Ohio | $53,488 | 6 | Ohio University-Main Campus |
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