Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for International Relations (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in International Relations earn a median of $66,596 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $46,031 and $87,798. We rank the 79 U.S. colleges whose International Relations programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 6,060 graduates in all. That puts International Relations at #49 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, leads at $99,205, 49% above the median ranked school ($66,435). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $58,901 and $73,283, and the lowest earns $42,864. 39 of the 79 ranked schools (49%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 16 private nonprofit, 4 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 54% are public. The top 20 are spread across 14 states, with District of Columbia the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $31,199 a year, against $22,811 across all 79 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,500 in federal loans, about 25% 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 2.9 years.
Showing the top 50 of 79 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,205 | 49 | $12,000 | $18,809 | 1.2 |
| 2 | Middlebury College Middlebury, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,728 | 31 † | — | $31,483 | 2.3 |
| 3 | William & Mary Williamsburg, VA Public · 4-year | $91,065 | 41 | $20,500 | $19,096 | 1.4 |
| 4 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $87,439 | 28 † | $10,470 | $28,699 | 2.3 |
| 5 | Brown University Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $86,780 | 32 † | $12,000 | $25,184 | 2.2 |
| 6 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,866 | 156 | $13,247 | $32,740 | 2.7 |
| 7 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,474 | 28 † | $16,478 | $37,244 | 3.0 |
| 8 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $82,991 | 128 | $19,500 | $21,565 | 1.9 |
| 9 | Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $82,197 | 131 | $17,500 | $40,815 | 3.9 |
| 10 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,029 | 43 | $19,500 | $22,585 | 2.0 |
| 11 | Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,998 | 68 | $16,250 | $39,998 | 4.3 |
| 12 | Tulane University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,300 | 43 | $20,000 | $39,949 | 3.7 |
| 13 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,234 | 99 | $24,759 | $44,338 | 4.3 |
| 14 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,751 | 433 | $20,958 | $36,586 | 4.0 |
| 15 | Cal Poly Maritime Academy Vallejo, CA Public · 4-year | $76,478 | 38 † | $25,500 | $20,555 | 2.1 |
| 16 | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,520 | 87 | $22,500 | $41,272 | 4.0 |
| 17 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,816 | 71 | $21,000 | $30,915 | 3.7 |
| 18 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $74,709 | 105 | $23,750 | $19,680 | 2.0 |
| 19 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,477 | 28 † | $19,234 | $29,167 | 3.0 |
| 20 | American University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,865 | 444 | $23,250 | $41,943 | 5.0 |
| 21 | Virginia Military Institute Lexington, VA Public · 4-year | $72,700 | 62 | $21,875 | $17,113 | 1.9 |
| 22 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $71,988 | 95 | $21,250 | $24,953 | 2.8 |
| 23 | Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,949 | 77 | $20,500 | $31,446 | 3.6 |
| 24 | Liberty University Lynchburg, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,436 | 31 † | $21,750 | $29,357 | 3.4 |
| 25 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $71,001 | 112 | $24,375 | $32,875 | 3.8 |
| 26 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $70,510 | 107 | $18,761 | $13,936 | 1.5 |
| 27 | Rollins College Winter Park, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,502 | 25 † | $27,000 | $34,732 | 3.8 |
| 28 | Occidental College Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,394 | 34 † | $19,275 | $38,263 | 4.6 |
| 29 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $69,399 | 196 | $20,117 | $17,915 | 2.2 |
| 30 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $68,798 | 87 | $18,138 | $23,322 | 2.9 |
| 31 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,180 | 34 † | $20,094 | $30,902 | 3.9 |
| 32 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,049 | 102 | $26,068 | $38,793 | 4.8 |
| 33 | Norwich University Northfield, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,004 | 41 | $18,000 | $22,257 | 2.9 |
| 34 | University of North Georgia Dahlonega, GA Public · 4-year | $67,692 | 29 † | $20,500 | $9,823 | 1.2 |
| 35 | Baylor University Waco, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,484 | 42 | $22,409 | $41,104 | 5.0 |
| 36 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $67,301 | 53 | $20,475 | $28,384 | 3.6 |
| 37 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $67,056 | 180 | $12,500 | $14,741 | 2.0 |
| 38 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $67,001 | 34 † | $23,250 | $27,646 | 3.7 |
| 39 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,661 | 141 | $23,394 | $24,402 | 3.8 |
| 40 | SUNY College at Geneseo Geneseo, NY Public · 4-year | $66,435 | 50 | $17,500 | $18,211 | 2.4 |
| 41 | Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,180 | 37 † | $20,750 | $31,487 | 4.4 |
| 42 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $66,064 | 176 | $18,384 | $17,339 | 2.3 |
| 43 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $65,775 | 85 | $16,625 | $12,278 | 1.7 |
| 44 | American Public University System Charles Town, WV For-profit · 4-year | $65,510 | 59 | $14,947 | $9,597 | 1.2 |
| 45 | Wheaton College Wheaton, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,230 | 29 † | $23,250 | $26,975 | 3.7 |
| 46 | Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,169 | 34 † | $25,000 | $37,730 | 5.3 |
| 47 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $64,715 | 74 | $24,748 | $17,799 | 2.5 |
| 48 | Florida International University Miami, FL Public · 4-year | $64,399 | 186 | $17,662 | $9,288 | 1.2 |
| 49 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $63,984 | 361 | $16,750 | $11,297 | 1.5 |
| 50 | Dickinson College Carlisle, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,570 | 37 † | $19,000 | $37,607 | 5.8 |
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 International Relations (CIP 4509, 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 79.
- 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 International Relations 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $76,751 | 3 | Georgetown University |
| Massachusetts | $74,816 | 3 | Tufts University |
| Virginia | $71,436 | 9 | William & Mary |
| Georgia | $69,101 | 4 | Emory University |
| Pennsylvania | $68,085 | 4 | University of Pennsylvania |
| Florida | $67,451 | 6 | University of Miami |
| New York | $67,242 | 4 | Fordham University |
| Illinois | $66,705 | 4 | Northwestern University |
| Ohio | $66,064 | 3 | Miami University-Oxford |
| California | $63,642 | 10 | University of Southern California |
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