Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Hospitality Management (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Hospitality Management earn a median of $56,726 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $40,953 and $73,841. We rank the 111 U.S. colleges whose Hospitality Management programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 10,548 graduates in all. That puts Hospitality Management at #76 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Cornell University, in New York, leads at $112,289, 99% above the median ranked school ($56,451). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $51,576 and $61,999, and the lowest earns $38,420, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 53 of the 111 ranked schools (48%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 11 public, 9 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. The top 20 are spread across 13 states, with California the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $22,853 a year, against $16,317 across all 111 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,658 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 2.5 years.
Showing the top 50 of 111 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $112,289 | 165 | $13,086 | $28,690 | 1.5 |
| 2 | New York University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,375 | 35 † | $17,905 | $37,050 | 3.0 |
| 3 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $82,302 | 60 | $23,250 | $24,402 | 2.4 |
| 4 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,683 | 25 † | $19,250 | $36,586 | 4.1 |
| 5 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $72,817 | 56 | $24,500 | $24,953 | 2.8 |
| 6 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,556 | 29 † | $16,500 | $30,902 | 3.5 |
| 7 | Fairleigh Dickinson University-Metropolitan Campus Teaneck, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,188 | 35 † | $25,000 | $15,404 | 1.8 |
| 8 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $71,102 | 116 | $22,850 | $17,799 | 2.1 |
| 9 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year | $70,916 | 143 | $21,500 | $22,383 | 3.0 |
| 10 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $70,113 | 97 | $15,000 | $15,364 | 1.9 |
| 11 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $69,651 | 211 | $21,815 | $19,680 | 2.3 |
| 12 | Lasell University Newton, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,693 | 38 † | $26,399 | $27,511 | 4.0 |
| 13 | West Virginia University Morgantown, WV Public · 4-year | $68,473 | 25 † | $25,300 | $15,634 | 1.8 |
| 14 | Washington State University Pullman, WA Public · 4-year | $66,874 | 87 | $23,207 | $14,971 | 2.3 |
| 15 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $66,046 | 55 | $27,000 | $23,805 | 4.0 |
| 16 | California State University-East Bay Hayward, CA Public · 4-year | $65,655 | 33 † | $18,579 | $9,320 | 1.3 |
| 17 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $65,510 | 121 | $14,125 | $12,278 | 1.7 |
| 18 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $65,016 | 134 | $19,875 | $23,322 | 3.3 |
| 19 | York College of Pennsylvania York, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,754 | 29 † | $21,500 | $18,556 | 2.6 |
| 20 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,526 | 27 † | $23,250 | $36,708 | 6.5 |
| 21 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $64,315 | 90 | $15,000 | $14,967 | 2.2 |
| 22 | College of Charleston Charleston, SC Public · 4-year | $64,154 | 73 | $23,323 | $18,960 | 2.6 |
| 23 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $63,798 | 168 | $23,455 | $32,875 | 4.8 |
| 24 | Auburn University Auburn, AL Public · 4-year | $63,419 | 27 † | $24,500 | $24,323 | 3.1 |
| 25 | Campbell University Buies Creek, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,402 | 27 † | $19,750 | $24,516 | 3.3 |
| 26 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $62,727 | 62 | $20,500 | $17,915 | 2.7 |
| 27 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $62,673 | 192 | $17,404 | $11,297 | 1.6 |
| 28 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO Public · 4-year | $62,556 | 57 | $18,500 | $21,279 | 3.9 |
| 29 | University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO Public · 4-year | $61,441 | 158 | $22,000 | $20,268 | 3.0 |
| 30 | National Louis University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,413 | 37 † | $25,248 | $12,641 | 2.0 |
| 31 | Endicott College Beverly, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,969 | 51 | $23,250 | $40,654 | 8.2 |
| 32 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $60,347 | 132 | $24,554 | $28,198 | 4.7 |
| 33 | University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI Public · 4-year | $60,157 | 90 | $19,261 | $15,664 | 2.7 |
| 34 | St. Joseph's University-New York Brooklyn, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,041 | 43 | $18,834 | $19,035 | 3.1 |
| 35 | Florida Gulf Coast University Fort Myers, FL Public · 4-year | $60,011 | 213 | $19,500 | $12,568 | 2.0 |
| 36 | New York Institute of Technology Old Westbury, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $59,490 | 31 † | $19,500 | $22,443 | 3.8 |
| 37 | Georgia State University Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $59,089 | 77 | $18,750 | $15,931 | 2.5 |
| 38 | East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania East Stroudsburg, PA Public · 4-year | $58,882 | 43 | $26,905 | $18,134 | 3.2 |
| 39 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $58,861 | 108 | $18,916 | $14,600 | 2.6 |
| 40 | Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ Public · 4-year | $58,857 | 242 | $18,750 | $14,158 | 2.5 |
| 41 | The University of Tennessee-Knoxville Knoxville, TN Public · 4-year | $58,854 | 45 | $21,500 | $18,976 | 3.2 |
| 42 | University of Nevada-Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV Public · 4-year | $58,719 | 399 | $18,750 | $10,359 | 1.9 |
| 43 | Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL Public · 4-year | $58,546 | 38 † | $24,000 | $13,391 | 2.4 |
| 44 | Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI Public · 4-year | $58,413 | 105 | $25,500 | $16,317 | 2.8 |
| 45 | Kansas State University Manhattan, KS Public · 4-year | $58,282 | 52 | $24,250 | $19,406 | 3.3 |
| 46 | Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,165 | 357 | $26,500 | $36,113 | 6.4 |
| 47 | California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA Public · 4-year | $57,927 | 81 | $12,500 | $10,440 | 2.0 |
| 48 | University of South Florida Tampa, FL Public · 4-year | $57,695 | 47 | $20,997 | $9,812 | 1.7 |
| 49 | Roosevelt University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,617 | 52 | $18,283 | $20,194 | 3.8 |
| 50 | Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $57,312 | 127 | $16,858 | $15,327 | 3.7 |
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 Hospitality Management (CIP 5209, 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 111.
- 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 Hospitality 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | $69,805 | 4 | Boston University |
| Virginia | $63,872 | 4 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Pennsylvania | $59,615 | 6 | York College of Pennsylvania |
| Arizona | $58,857 | 3 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion |
| Illinois | $58,546 | 5 | DePaul University |
| California | $57,927 | 7 | San Diego State University |
| Florida | $56,667 | 7 | Florida State University |
| Texas | $55,036 | 6 | University of North Texas |
| Michigan | $54,094 | 6 | Michigan State University |
| South Carolina | $53,776 | 4 | College of Charleston |
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