Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Psychology (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Psychology earn a median of $50,706 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $35,740 and $67,229. We rank the 783 U.S. colleges whose Psychology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 93,927 graduates in all. That puts Psychology at #102 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
Georgetown University, in District of Columbia, leads at $99,007, 96% above the median ranked school ($50,642). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $46,241 and $55,125, and the lowest earns $29,042, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 387 of the 783 ranked schools (49%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 18 private nonprofit, 2 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 52% are public. California places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of District of Columbia (2).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $30,934 a year, against $19,117 across all 783 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $18,535 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 3.3 years.
Showing the top 50 of 783 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,007 | 51 | $17,500 | $40,815 | 2.8 |
| 2 | Washington University in St Louis St. Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,787 | 33 † | — | $21,786 | 1.5 |
| 3 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $79,187 | 52 | — | $36,586 | 3.7 |
| 4 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,049 | 39 † | $13,000 | $28,690 | 2.7 |
| 5 | Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,742 | 64 | $17,000 | $50,062 | 5.2 |
| 6 | Virginia Military Institute Lexington, VA Public · 4-year | $75,059 | 30 † | $19,250 | $17,113 | 1.8 |
| 7 | Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,466 | 32 † | $27,000 | $31,490 | 3.3 |
| 8 | University of San Diego San Diego, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,178 | 59 | $22,500 | $30,365 | 3.3 |
| 9 | College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,095 | 85 | $26,990 | $38,782 | 4.7 |
| 10 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,684 | 63 | $21,500 | $43,756 | 4.7 |
| 11 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,646 | 79 | $13,500 | $29,167 | 3.1 |
| 12 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,359 | 58 | $15,415 | $29,612 | 3.0 |
| 13 | Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,584 | 30 † | $11,187 | $15,846 | 1.7 |
| 14 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,461 | 126 | $14,000 | $32,740 | 3.9 |
| 15 | Fairfield University Fairfield, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,211 | 64 | $26,000 | $48,095 | 5.9 |
| 16 | Saint Mary's College of California Moraga, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,123 | 30 † | $25,000 | $30,378 | 3.7 |
| 17 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,033 | 95 | $18,000 | $41,704 | 5.8 |
| 18 | Elon University Elon, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,856 | 58 | $19,500 | $41,555 | 4.6 |
| 19 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,793 | 46 | $18,570 | $26,780 | 3.2 |
| 20 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $67,249 | 224 | $18,500 | $21,620 | 2.7 |
| 21 | National University San Diego, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,849 | 142 | $28,062 | $22,878 | 3.1 |
| 22 | Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,206 | 36 † | $27,000 | $40,766 | 5.5 |
| 23 | Saint Francis University Loretto, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,010 | 27 † | $27,000 | $23,526 | 3.2 |
| 24 | Drew University Madison, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,997 | 30 † | $26,000 | $24,280 | 3.3 |
| 25 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,694 | 200 | $26,000 | $38,793 | 5.2 |
| 26 | Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,356 | 63 | $21,375 | $36,660 | 4.8 |
| 27 | Baylor University Waco, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,090 | 85 | $25,000 | $41,104 | 5.4 |
| 28 | University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,071 | 104 | $23,250 | $41,431 | 5.9 |
| 29 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,814 | 54 | $21,393 | $28,719 | 3.7 |
| 30 | Manhattan University Riverdale, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,684 | 35 † | $26,000 | $27,256 | 3.8 |
| 31 | University of Richmond University of Richmond, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,584 | 33 † | $25,000 | $31,309 | 4.5 |
| 32 | Bradley University Peoria, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,378 | 33 † | $27,000 | $22,719 | 3.2 |
| 33 | Azusa Pacific University Azusa, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,963 | 52 | $21,500 | $22,212 | 3.3 |
| 34 | Stonehill College Easton, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,957 | 76 | $25,000 | $33,016 | 5.8 |
| 35 | Manhattanville University Purchase, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,908 | 48 | $24,323 | $20,991 | 3.0 |
| 36 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,838 | 127 | $23,250 | $24,402 | 4.3 |
| 37 | Providence College Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,746 | 70 | $27,000 | $48,523 | 8.3 |
| 38 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,617 | 70 | $20,500 | $46,555 | 7.0 |
| 39 | Yale University New Haven, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,396 | 28 † | — | $23,777 | 3.7 |
| 40 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,287 | 71 | $27,000 | $38,509 | 5.7 |
| 41 | Siena University Loudonville, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,227 | 98 | $27,000 | $33,733 | 4.9 |
| 42 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $62,835 | 32 † | — | $13,481 | 2.1 |
| 43 | Marist University Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,821 | 74 | $23,250 | $41,544 | 6.1 |
| 44 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $62,794 | 98 | $19,268 | $21,565 | 3.3 |
| 45 | St. John's University-New York Queens, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,672 | 150 | $26,679 | $29,999 | 4.5 |
| 46 | Merrimack College North Andover, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,567 | 32 † | $27,000 | $37,927 | 7.0 |
| 47 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $62,563 | 338 | $17,625 | $17,915 | 2.8 |
| 48 | Pacific University Forest Grove, OR Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,484 | 26 † | $26,372 | $35,273 | 5.5 |
| 49 | St Lawrence University Canton, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,479 | 69 | $25,000 | $28,651 | 4.3 |
| 50 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $62,397 | 109 | $23,527 | $27,646 | 4.4 |
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 Psychology (CIP 4201, 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 783.
- 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 Psychology 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 | $62,240 | 5 | Georgetown University |
| Rhode Island | $57,212 | 5 | Providence College |
| Maryland | $55,497 | 15 | St. Mary's College of Maryland |
| California | $55,468 | 48 | Santa Clara University |
| New York | $55,378 | 61 | Cornell University |
| North Dakota | $55,333 | 3 | University of Mary |
| Connecticut | $54,784 | 15 | Fairfield University |
| Washington | $54,530 | 13 | University of Puget Sound |
| Massachusetts | $54,483 | 29 | College of the Holy Cross |
| Vermont | $52,589 | 3 | University of Vermont |
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