Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Kinesiology and Exercise Science (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology and Exercise Science earn a median of $54,562 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $39,049 and $73,020. We rank the 481 U.S. colleges whose Kinesiology and Exercise Science programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 43,704 graduates in all. That puts Kinesiology and Exercise Science at #90 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Rice University, in Texas, leads at $87,404, 63% above the median ranked school ($53,736). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $48,991 and $58,526, and the lowest earns $30,791, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 219 of the 481 ranked schools (46%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 10 public, 10 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. The top 20 are spread across 16 states, with Massachusetts the most common (2).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $21,974 a year, against $18,211 across all 481 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $23,625 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 2.0 years.
Showing the top 50 of 481 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Rice University Houston, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $87,404 | 38 † | $10,000 | $13,370 | 1.0 |
| 2 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $87,254 | 53 | $19,500 | $22,585 | 1.7 |
| 3 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $81,110 | 32 † | $22,973 | $21,565 | 1.9 |
| 4 | University of Scranton Scranton, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $79,700 | 36 † | $27,000 | $32,568 | 3.0 |
| 5 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $79,599 | 37 † | $22,777 | $28,719 | 2.5 |
| 6 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $79,411 | 181 | $18,924 | $13,138 | 1.2 |
| 7 | Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,835 | 38 † | $25,125 | $31,446 | 3.1 |
| 8 | Carroll University Waukesha, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,095 | 187 | $27,000 | $15,193 | 1.5 |
| 9 | Saint Louis University Saint Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,066 | 156 | $26,316 | $24,398 | 2.3 |
| 10 | Simmons University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $76,569 | 47 | $26,974 | $25,265 | 2.8 |
| 11 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $76,478 | 236 | $25,000 | $17,799 | 1.8 |
| 12 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $74,963 | 65 | $24,000 | $17,354 | 1.9 |
| 13 | Lebanon Valley College Annville, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,429 | 51 | $27,000 | $26,979 | 2.8 |
| 14 | University of Mississippi University, MS Public · 4-year | $73,870 | 53 | $21,516 | $13,314 | 1.2 |
| 15 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $73,289 | 31 † | $21,500 | $25,097 | 2.8 |
| 16 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year | $73,238 | 125 | $23,250 | $22,383 | 2.8 |
| 17 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $72,724 | 63 | $20,500 | $14,600 | 1.6 |
| 18 | Wittenberg University Springfield, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,289 | 43 | $27,000 | $18,649 | 2.1 |
| 19 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $71,844 | 249 | $24,838 | $24,406 | 2.8 |
| 20 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK Public · 4-year | $71,589 | 129 | $21,508 | $15,300 | 1.7 |
| 21 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $70,919 | 249 | $24,500 | $28,384 | 3.3 |
| 22 | William & Mary Williamsburg, VA Public · 4-year | $68,992 | 73 | $20,500 | $19,096 | 2.4 |
| 23 | University of Toledo Toledo, OH Public · 4-year | $68,866 | 81 | $20,058 | $17,249 | 2.1 |
| 24 | Indiana University-Bloomington Bloomington, IN Public · 4-year | $68,675 | 307 | $19,400 | $16,264 | 2.0 |
| 25 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,219 | 157 | $27,000 | $38,793 | 4.8 |
| 26 | Elon University Elon, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,178 | 70 | $22,750 | $41,555 | 4.9 |
| 27 | University of Mary Bismarck, ND Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,088 | 33 † | $24,490 | $17,770 | 2.3 |
| 28 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $67,782 | 150 | $19,986 | $14,355 | 1.8 |
| 29 | University of South Carolina-Columbia Columbia, SC Public · 4-year | $67,705 | 171 | $21,500 | $22,811 | 2.8 |
| 30 | Central Connecticut State University New Britain, CT Public · 4-year | $67,562 | 52 | $23,250 | $16,857 | 2.3 |
| 31 | Saint Ambrose University Davenport, IA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,548 | 85 | $25,474 | $24,691 | 3.2 |
| 32 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $67,399 | 220 | $26,940 | $32,875 | 4.3 |
| 33 | Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA Public · 4-year | $67,351 | 51 | $20,174 | $12,885 | 1.7 |
| 34 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $67,290 | 342 | $24,580 | $19,680 | 2.4 |
| 35 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $67,275 | 195 | $19,516 | $13,936 | 1.7 |
| 36 | Citadel Military College of South Carolina Charleston, SC Public · 4-year | $66,934 | 46 | $23,000 | $20,723 | 2.6 |
| 37 | Rockhurst University Kansas City, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,881 | 49 | $25,000 | $25,884 | 3.2 |
| 38 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $66,580 | 135 | $20,730 | $19,857 | 2.5 |
| 39 | Marian University (IN) Indianapolis, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,491 | 33 † | $27,000 | $24,018 | 3.2 |
| 40 | Saint Mary's College of California Moraga, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,265 | 30 † | $21,625 | $30,378 | 4.1 |
| 41 | Elmhurst University Elmhurst, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,244 | 67 | $18,375 | $24,185 | 3.2 |
| 42 | Adelphi University Garden City, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,003 | 75 | $25,000 | $30,783 | 4.1 |
| 43 | University of Jamestown Jamestown, ND Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,831 | 25 † | $27,000 | $19,567 | 2.7 |
| 44 | Roanoke College Salem, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,112 | 62 | $27,000 | $24,503 | 3.4 |
| 45 | Pepperdine University Malibu, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,100 | 35 † | $23,336 | $58,098 | 8.3 |
| 46 | John Carroll University University Heights, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,098 | 76 | $26,999 | $28,746 | 4.0 |
| 47 | University of Massachusetts-Boston Boston, MA Public · 4-year | $64,665 | 185 | $22,993 | $17,707 | 3.0 |
| 48 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $64,579 | 71 | $15,000 | $16,665 | 2.4 |
| 49 | Shenandoah University Winchester, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,373 | 27 † | $25,432 | $30,298 | 4.4 |
| 50 | University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT Public · 4-year | $64,356 | 154 | $17,663 | $16,200 | 2.5 |
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 Kinesiology and Exercise Science (CIP 3105, 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 481.
- 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 Kinesiology and Exercise Science 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Jersey | $58,308 | 5 | Seton Hall University |
| Minnesota | $57,432 | 12 | Winona State University |
| North Dakota | $57,409 | 4 | University of Mary |
| Idaho | $57,214 | 3 | Boise State University |
| Utah | $57,058 | 5 | University of Utah |
| California | $56,938 | 29 | Sonoma State University |
| New York | $56,751 | 16 | Syracuse University |
| South Dakota | $56,400 | 5 | University of Sioux Falls |
| Arizona | $56,214 | 4 | Northern Arizona University |
| Indiana | $55,861 | 16 | Purdue University-Main Campus |
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