Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Neuroscience (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience earn a median of $62,451 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $40,736 and $88,598. We rank the 45 U.S. colleges whose Neuroscience programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,432 graduates in all. That puts Neuroscience at #56 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
University of Southern California, in California, leads at $89,203, 50% above the median ranked school ($59,568). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $56,218 and $68,888, and the lowest earns $48,464. 19 of the 45 ranked schools (42%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 12 public, 8 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. California places 5 schools in the top 20, ahead of Pennsylvania (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $23,195 a year, against $18,809 across all 45 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $20,431 in federal loans, about 29% 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 2.6 years.
Showing the top 45 of 45 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,203 | 41 | $14,000 | $32,740 | 2.5 |
| 2 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $78,722 | 39 † | $23,250 | $23,805 | 2.6 |
| 3 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,295 | 31 † | $12,000 | $28,699 | 2.7 |
| 4 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $77,478 | 111 | $19,500 | $21,620 | 2.1 |
| 5 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,617 | 61 | $24,000 | $30,915 | 3.7 |
| 6 | Indiana University-Bloomington Bloomington, IN Public · 4-year | $74,151 | 38 † | $22,802 | $16,264 | 1.7 |
| 7 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,795 | 47 | $17,421 | $22,585 | 2.3 |
| 8 | Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI Public · 4-year | $73,316 | 47 | $25,000 | $17,597 | 1.8 |
| 9 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,140 | 30 † | $12,645 | $29,612 | 3.0 |
| 10 | University of San Diego San Diego, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,910 | 44 | $25,000 | $30,365 | 3.4 |
| 11 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $69,027 | 27 † | $19,000 | $17,890 | 2.2 |
| 12 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,888 | 65 | $24,325 | $24,402 | 3.5 |
| 13 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $68,546 | 48 | $19,727 | $17,915 | 2.2 |
| 14 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $68,480 | 95 | $21,134 | $17,339 | 2.1 |
| 15 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,458 | 38 † | $19,500 | $26,780 | 3.7 |
| 16 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $65,239 | 71 | $21,500 | $30,434 | 4.2 |
| 17 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $65,124 | 48 | $23,250 | $19,857 | 2.6 |
| 18 | Temple University Philadelphia, PA Public · 4-year | $64,063 | 63 | $25,668 | $28,198 | 4.1 |
| 19 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $63,720 | 212 | $12,917 | $14,741 | 2.2 |
| 20 | University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA Public · 4-year | $61,799 | 121 | $19,000 | $12,470 | 2.0 |
| 21 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,065 | 34 † | $12,344 | $15,564 | 2.9 |
| 22 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $59,714 | 63 | $22,300 | $24,953 | 4.3 |
| 23 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $59,568 | 43 | $21,741 | $16,778 | 3.1 |
| 24 | The University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, TX Public · 4-year | $59,498 | 68 | $19,500 | $18,267 | 3.0 |
| 25 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $59,009 | 41 | $25,000 | $17,799 | 3.2 |
| 26 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $58,824 | 70 | $21,202 | $17,354 | 3.3 |
| 27 | Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,373 | 26 † | $25,000 | $36,079 | 6.5 |
| 28 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $58,046 | 97 | $24,232 | $19,680 | 3.4 |
| 29 | University of Cincinnati-Main Campus Cincinnati, OH Public · 4-year | $58,004 | 42 | $23,827 | $25,648 | 4.7 |
| 30 | Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI Public · 4-year | $57,842 | 35 † | $24,179 | $16,317 | 2.8 |
| 31 | University of Nevada-Reno Reno, NV Public · 4-year | $57,769 | 47 | $20,833 | $15,927 | 3.1 |
| 32 | University of Illinois Chicago Chicago, IL Public · 4-year | $56,869 | 34 † | $15,687 | $10,974 | 2.1 |
| 33 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $56,324 | 43 | $12,750 | $18,809 | 4.0 |
| 34 | Indiana University-Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN Public · 4-year | $56,218 | 34 † | $15,127 | $11,668 | 2.4 |
| 35 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $55,436 | 69 | $17,500 | $13,138 | 2.5 |
| 36 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $55,404 | 53 | $16,674 | $12,548 | 2.7 |
| 37 | University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, NE Public · 4-year | $55,043 | 26 † | $15,449 | $13,441 | 3.0 |
| 38 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,279 | 32 † | $17,309 | $29,167 | 6.4 |
| 39 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,088 | 25 † | $27,000 | $38,793 | 8.5 |
| 40 | University of Vermont Burlington, VT Public · 4-year | $53,755 | 38 † | $19,650 | $19,343 | 4.7 |
| 41 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $52,571 | 43 | $21,754 | $16,674 | 4.1 |
| 42 | University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA Public · 4-year | $51,865 | 69 | $19,000 | $14,304 | 3.8 |
| 43 | Georgia State University Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $51,367 | 61 | $23,250 | $15,931 | 3.6 |
| 44 | Saint Edward's University Austin, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $50,936 | 25 † | $24,250 | $25,578 | 6.3 |
| 45 | Tulane University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $48,464 | 37 † | $19,500 | $39,949 | 11.3 |
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 Neuroscience (CIP 2615, 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 45.
- 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 Neuroscience 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana | $65,458 | 3 | Indiana University-Bloomington |
| Pennsylvania | $65,239 | 3 | University of Pennsylvania |
| California | $63,720 | 7 | University of Southern California |
| Texas | $59,498 | 3 | The University of Texas at Austin |
| Michigan | $57,944 | 4 | Central Michigan University |
| Illinois | $56,869 | 3 | Loyola University Chicago |
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