Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Mechanical Engineering (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering earn a median of $92,135 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $77,715 and $109,121. We rank the 271 U.S. colleges whose Mechanical Engineering programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 34,841 graduates in all. That puts Mechanical Engineering at #13 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, among the best-paid fields.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Massachusetts, leads at $131,967, 44% above the median ranked school ($91,435). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $88,219 and $96,101, and the lowest earns $70,314, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 125 of the 271 ranked schools (46%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 7 public, 13 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. California places 8 schools in the top 20, ahead of New York (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $20,333 a year, against $17,915 across all 271 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $16,000 in federal loans, about 15% 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 1.1 years.
Showing the top 50 of 271 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $131,967 | 122 | $11,507 | $20,111 | 0.9 |
| 2 | Cal Poly Maritime Academy Vallejo, CA Public · 4-year | $126,395 | 48 | $19,690 | $20,555 | 0.9 |
| 3 | Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $122,111 | 59 | $19,000 | $50,062 | 2.4 |
| 4 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $120,991 | 50 | $10,000 | $29,612 | 1.4 |
| 5 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $119,371 | 101 | $13,000 | $13,481 | 0.7 |
| 6 | Stanford University Stanford, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $117,072 | 27 † | — | $13,807 | 0.7 |
| 7 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $114,492 | 36 † | $12,910 | $28,699 | 1.5 |
| 8 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $112,212 | 117 | $15,500 | $28,690 | 1.5 |
| 9 | Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $111,491 | 53 | $10,057 | $21,590 | 1.1 |
| 10 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $110,210 | 40 | $10,750 | $18,809 | 1.0 |
| 11 | Rice University Houston, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,970 | 36 † | $15,375 | $13,370 | 0.7 |
| 12 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $108,875 | 102 | $16,500 | $12,548 | 0.7 |
| 13 | SUNY Maritime College Throggs Neck, NY Public · 4-year | $106,932 | 103 | $25,064 | $22,367 | 1.3 |
| 14 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $106,750 | 211 | $20,500 | $16,665 | 1.0 |
| 15 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $105,888 | 292 | $20,500 | $13,138 | 0.7 |
| 16 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,623 | 116 | $22,777 | $31,944 | 1.8 |
| 17 | California Baptist University Riverside, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,046 | 40 | $27,000 | $26,285 | 1.5 |
| 18 | University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $104,683 | 29 † | — | $15,232 | 0.9 |
| 19 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $104,649 | 78 | $14,250 | $32,740 | 1.9 |
| 20 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $104,523 | 191 | $18,500 | $19,857 | 1.1 |
| 21 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $104,336 | 72 | $15,000 | $16,109 | 1.0 |
| 22 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $104,229 | 107 | $20,000 | $12,470 | 0.7 |
| 23 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,384 | 231 | $25,547 | $30,915 | 2.0 |
| 24 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $102,572 | 202 | $19,500 | $14,600 | 0.9 |
| 25 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $102,161 | 139 | $13,867 | $14,741 | 0.9 |
| 26 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $102,104 | 99 | $21,250 | $12,278 | 0.8 |
| 27 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $102,078 | 123 | $14,448 | $14,091 | 0.9 |
| 28 | Lafayette College Easton, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,348 | 27 † | $19,500 | $34,433 | 2.1 |
| 29 | Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,345 | 37 † | $14,000 | $15,846 | 1.0 |
| 30 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,196 | 43 | $21,375 | $36,586 | 2.4 |
| 31 | Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,196 | 30 † | $16,250 | $39,998 | 2.7 |
| 32 | Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,554 | 216 | $26,495 | $41,346 | 2.6 |
| 33 | Lawrence Technological University Southfield, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,145 | 81 | $27,000 | $32,918 | 2.0 |
| 34 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $100,003 | 245 | $19,500 | $15,678 | 1.0 |
| 35 | Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $99,975 | 120 | $18,500 | $19,151 | 1.2 |
| 36 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $99,955 | 416 | $22,500 | $12,116 | 0.7 |
| 37 | Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,860 | 26 † | $19,500 | $40,766 | 2.6 |
| 38 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,859 | 107 | $18,910 | $26,780 | 1.7 |
| 39 | University of the Pacific Stockton, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,573 | 34 † | $28,000 | $25,447 | 1.6 |
| 40 | Saint Louis University Saint Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,331 | 27 † | $25,029 | $24,398 | 1.5 |
| 41 | Kettering University Flint, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,292 | 242 | $28,000 | $34,660 | 2.2 |
| 42 | California State University-Northridge Northridge, CA Public · 4-year | $99,216 | 195 | $17,000 | $7,021 | 0.5 |
| 43 | California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA Public · 4-year | $99,148 | 246 | $16,940 | $11,531 | 0.7 |
| 44 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $99,111 | 235 | $14,750 | $14,251 | 0.9 |
| 45 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,277 | 56 | $13,942 | $29,167 | 1.9 |
| 46 | New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Socorro, NM Public · 4-year | $98,213 | 80 | $19,500 | $9,873 | 0.6 |
| 47 | University of Alaska Anchorage Anchorage, AK Public · 4-year | $98,156 | 44 | $16,000 | $15,301 | 1.1 |
| 48 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $98,113 | 340 | $25,000 | $19,070 | 1.2 |
| 49 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $97,946 | 251 | $23,250 | $19,680 | 1.2 |
| 50 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $97,903 | 228 | $19,389 | $21,315 | 1.4 |
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 Mechanical Engineering (CIP 1419, 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 271.
- 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 Mechanical Engineering 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | $100,003 | 3 | Johns Hopkins University |
| California | $99,216 | 27 | Cal Poly Maritime Academy |
| Massachusetts | $97,062 | 10 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| New Mexico | $94,990 | 3 | New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology |
| Michigan | $94,894 | 14 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
| Oregon | $93,982 | 4 | Oregon Institute of Technology |
| Washington | $93,894 | 6 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus |
| Colorado | $93,667 | 6 | Colorado School of Mines |
| Alabama | $93,246 | 7 | University of Alabama in Huntsville |
| Missouri | $93,186 | 6 | Saint Louis University |
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