Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Natural Resources Conservation (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Natural Resources Conservation earn a median of $55,012 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $39,435 and $72,794. We rank the 164 U.S. colleges whose Natural Resources Conservation programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 11,297 graduates in all. That puts Natural Resources Conservation at #87 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Columbia Southern University, in Alabama, leads at $81,292, 47% above the median ranked school ($55,288). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $50,279 and $59,878, and the lowest earns $39,932, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 85 of the 164 ranked schools (52%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 12 public, 7 private nonprofit and 1 for-profit. California places 8 schools in the top 20, ahead of Massachusetts (4).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $18,162 a year, against $17,890 across all 164 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $18,000 in federal loans, about 26% 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 2.1 years.
Showing the top 50 of 164 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Columbia Southern University Orange Beach, AL For-profit · 4-year | $81,292 | 74 | $22,078 | $14,580 | 1.2 |
| 2 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,731 | 41 | $9,125 | $32,740 | 3.1 |
| 3 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $78,624 | 295 | $12,817 | $13,481 | 1.3 |
| 4 | Tufts University Medford, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,753 | 27 † | $18,050 | $39,998 | 4.4 |
| 5 | University of Maryland Global Campus Adelphi, MD Public · 4-year | $77,259 | 54 | $20,327 | $22,063 | 2.2 |
| 6 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $75,927 | 50 | $17,806 | $12,548 | 1.3 |
| 7 | Massachusetts Maritime Academy Buzzards Bay, MA Public · 4-year | $74,393 | 65 | $26,000 | $21,582 | 2.6 |
| 8 | Brandeis University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,936 | 25 † | — | $35,736 | 4.3 |
| 9 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,430 | 26 † | $23,250 | $44,338 | 5.0 |
| 10 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,272 | 60 | $22,973 | $30,915 | 4.2 |
| 11 | California State University-Chico Chico, CA Public · 4-year | $69,531 | 28 † | $20,500 | $14,480 | 1.8 |
| 12 | Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA Public · 4-year | $69,077 | 70 | $15,125 | $12,885 | 1.6 |
| 13 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $69,061 | 39 † | $18,000 | $12,470 | 1.6 |
| 14 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,088 | 61 | $15,500 | $28,690 | 3.5 |
| 15 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $67,805 | 72 | $23,250 | $24,406 | 3.2 |
| 16 | California State University-Sacramento Sacramento, CA Public · 4-year | $67,795 | 75 | $20,000 | $9,338 | 1.2 |
| 17 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,020 | 35 † | $15,078 | $29,519 | 4.7 |
| 18 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $65,983 | 176 | $15,000 | $14,741 | 2.0 |
| 19 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $65,714 | 114 | $15,500 | $13,138 | 1.7 |
| 20 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC Public · 4-year | $65,337 | 131 | $12,000 | $11,655 | 1.5 |
| 21 | University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA Public · 4-year | $64,944 | 43 | $16,250 | $14,304 | 2.0 |
| 22 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK Public · 4-year | $64,798 | 47 | $24,125 | $15,300 | 2.0 |
| 23 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,795 | 25 † | $23,172 | $22,585 | 2.9 |
| 24 | University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Whitewater, WI Public · 4-year | $63,936 | 46 | $20,733 | $14,158 | 2.1 |
| 25 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $63,628 | 287 | $16,200 | $16,109 | 2.4 |
| 26 | Seattle University Seattle, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,465 | 26 † | $19,500 | $34,662 | 6.1 |
| 27 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO Public · 4-year | $63,337 | 95 | $19,750 | $25,346 | 4.5 |
| 28 | Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $63,175 | 45 | $18,630 | $15,327 | 2.7 |
| 29 | California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA Public · 4-year | $63,040 | 49 | $14,000 | $10,440 | 1.6 |
| 30 | Augustana College Rock Island, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,757 | 35 † | $26,000 | $22,736 | 3.4 |
| 31 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $62,683 | 29 † | $20,200 | $6,541 | 0.9 |
| 32 | Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,604 | 27 † | $24,889 | $31,490 | 4.8 |
| 33 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $62,116 | 53 | $14,087 | $12,278 | 2.0 |
| 34 | University of Massachusetts-Boston Boston, MA Public · 4-year | $61,382 | 58 | $20,412 | $17,707 | 3.5 |
| 35 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $60,864 | 45 | $20,500 | $28,198 | 4.6 |
| 36 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $60,728 | 81 | $23,080 | $19,680 | 3.0 |
| 37 | University of Southern Maine Portland, ME Public · 4-year | $60,665 | 26 † | $26,000 | $13,596 | 2.4 |
| 38 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $60,369 | 108 | $18,463 | $14,967 | 2.5 |
| 39 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $60,193 | 81 | $26,000 | $32,875 | 5.5 |
| 40 | Oakland University Rochester Hills, MI Public · 4-year | $59,922 | 45 | $19,187 | $9,120 | 1.5 |
| 41 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $59,908 | 37 † | $12,477 | $14,251 | 2.5 |
| 42 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $59,868 | 49 | $26,816 | $24,953 | 4.3 |
| 43 | University of Massachusetts-Lowell Lowell, MA Public · 4-year | $59,783 | 35 † | $26,125 | $17,163 | 3.7 |
| 44 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $59,620 | 80 | $25,000 | $17,799 | 3.1 |
| 45 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $59,329 | 49 | $19,607 | $15,678 | 2.9 |
| 46 | University of Iowa Iowa City, IA Public · 4-year | $59,071 | 52 | $23,875 | $22,531 | 4.1 |
| 47 | Portland State University Portland, OR Public · 4-year | $58,961 | 82 | $25,000 | $9,552 | 1.7 |
| 48 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,495 | 35 † | $29,898 | $38,509 | 7.0 |
| 49 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $58,475 | 44 | $14,000 | $21,565 | 3.9 |
| 50 | University of North Georgia Dahlonega, GA Public · 4-year | $58,403 | 32 † | — | $9,823 | 1.6 |
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 Natural Resources Conservation (CIP 0301, 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 164.
- 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 Natural Resources Conservation 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 | $63,334 | 20 | University of Southern California |
| Massachusetts | $60,583 | 10 | Tufts University |
| Virginia | $58,475 | 3 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Georgia | $58,403 | 3 | Emory University |
| New Jersey | $58,162 | 4 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick |
| New Hampshire | $57,747 | 5 | Dartmouth College |
| Pennsylvania | $56,959 | 11 | Gettysburg College |
| Maryland | $56,619 | 7 | University of Maryland Global Campus |
| Texas | $55,595 | 5 | Texas A&M University-College Station |
| Illinois | $55,382 | 5 | Augustana College |
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