Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Recreation Facilities Management (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Recreation Facilities Management earn a median of $50,468 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $37,507 and $64,333. We rank the 43 U.S. colleges whose Recreation Facilities Management programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,336 graduates in all. That puts Recreation Facilities Management at #108 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
University of Florida, in Florida, leads at $64,497, 30% above the median ranked school ($49,799). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $45,537 and $53,247, and the lowest earns $38,649, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 20 of the 43 ranked schools (47%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 18 public, 2 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 95% are public. The top 20 are spread across 17 states, with Colorado the most common (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $17,532 a year, against $16,244 across all 43 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,500 in federal loans, about 40% 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 4.3 years.
Showing the top 43 of 43 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $64,497 | 64 | $16,172 | $6,541 | 0.9 |
| 2 | St. Joseph's University-New York Brooklyn, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $59,616 | 35 † | $20,000 | $19,035 | 3.2 |
| 3 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $59,537 | 158 | $27,000 | $23,805 | 5.4 |
| 4 | Johnson & Wales University-Providence Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $56,241 | 400 | $26,100 | $31,027 | 7.8 |
| 5 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $55,741 | 132 | $23,000 | $32,875 | 6.8 |
| 6 | Illinois State University Normal, IL Public · 4-year | $55,032 | 149 | $19,236 | $19,398 | 4.1 |
| 7 | University of North Texas Denton, TX Public · 4-year | $54,621 | 78 | $23,000 | $15,649 | 3.2 |
| 8 | Minnesota State University-Mankato Mankato, MN Public · 4-year | $54,532 | 88 | $25,500 | $19,139 | 4.6 |
| 9 | Saint Cloud State University Saint Cloud, MN Public · 4-year | $54,302 | 30 † | $21,500 | $13,529 | 3.3 |
| 10 | Kean University Union, NJ Public · 4-year | $54,232 | 47 | $27,000 | $12,447 | 2.9 |
| 11 | Southern Connecticut State University New Haven, CT Public · 4-year | $53,522 | 47 | $24,931 | $20,857 | 5.3 |
| 12 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO Public · 4-year | $52,971 | 74 | $19,250 | $21,279 | 6.9 |
| 13 | Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania Bloomsburg, PA Public · 4-year | $52,571 | 50 | — | $15,699 | 3.9 |
| 14 | Frostburg State University Frostburg, MD Public · 4-year | $52,488 | 27 † | $21,250 | $16,715 | 4.5 |
| 15 | University of Northern Colorado Greeley, CO Public · 4-year | $52,363 | 68 | $23,875 | $17,760 | 6.1 |
| 16 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year | $52,233 | 81 | $19,000 | $17,303 | 3.8 |
| 17 | Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA Public · 4-year | $51,233 | 71 | $24,750 | $14,638 | 4.0 |
| 18 | Eastern Washington University Cheney, WA Public · 4-year | $51,206 | 25 † | $20,134 | $13,886 | 5.2 |
| 19 | Southwestern Oklahoma State University Weatherford, OK Public · 4-year | $50,937 | 52 | $16,500 | $14,459 | 3.6 |
| 20 | Kansas State University Manhattan, KS Public · 4-year | $50,522 | 32 † | $21,500 | $19,406 | 5.0 |
| 21 | University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, NC Public · 4-year | $50,241 | 56 | $20,125 | $20,109 | 5.0 |
| 22 | University of West Georgia Carrollton, GA Public · 4-year | $49,799 | 107 | $25,000 | $12,786 | 3.2 |
| 23 | Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN Public · 4-year | $49,623 | 100 | $24,622 | $10,873 | 3.3 |
| 24 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $49,377 | 28 † | $23,250 | $19,680 | 5.4 |
| 25 | Clemson University Clemson, SC Public · 4-year | $48,898 | 146 | $19,500 | $22,253 | 6.3 |
| 26 | Florida International University Miami, FL Public · 4-year | $48,814 | 192 | $17,750 | $9,288 | 2.6 |
| 27 | Northwest Missouri State University Maryville, MO Public · 4-year | $48,600 | 92 | $24,346 | $16,244 | 4.7 |
| 28 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $48,260 | 25 † | — | $11,297 | 3.2 |
| 29 | University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC Public · 4-year | $48,070 | 40 | — | $10,965 | 3.1 |
| 30 | Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year | $47,752 | 110 | $21,500 | $16,805 | 5.2 |
| 31 | Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN Public · 4-year | $46,796 | 73 | $25,500 | $13,359 | 4.5 |
| 32 | Western Illinois University Macomb, IL Public · 4-year | $46,363 | 83 | $27,000 | $12,937 | 5.0 |
| 33 | University of Wisconsin-La Crosse La Crosse, WI Public · 4-year | $44,710 | 34 † | $21,666 | $16,210 | 9.1 |
| 34 | Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania Slippery Rock, PA Public · 4-year | $44,304 | 86 | $26,000 | $19,608 | 10.0 |
| 35 | Kent State University at Kent Kent, OH Public · 4-year | $43,686 | 34 † | $19,500 | $20,787 | 10.9 |
| 36 | Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA Public · 4-year | $43,480 | 43 | $22,883 | $18,476 | 25.8 |
| 37 | Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, KY Public · 4-year | $42,600 | 35 † | $24,867 | $10,990 | 6.1 |
| 38 | North Carolina Central University Durham, NC Public · 4-year | $42,426 | 62 | $30,434 | $15,359 | 7.3 |
| 39 | Eastern Kentucky University Richmond, KY Public · 4-year | $41,877 | 57 | $25,000 | $11,040 | 6.8 |
| 40 | Western Carolina University Cullowhee, NC Public · 4-year | $41,786 | 46 | $21,415 | $13,315 | 6.9 |
| 41 | SUNY Brockport Brockport, NY Public · 4-year | $41,547 | 35 † | $19,559 | $16,353 | 11.3 |
| 42 | Appalachian State University Boone, NC Public · 4-year | $41,052 | 118 | $19,500 | $16,836 | 9.6 |
| 43 | West Virginia University Morgantown, WV Public · 4-year | $38,649 | 26 † | — | $15,634 | 13.5 |
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 Recreation Facilities Management (CIP 3103, 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 43.
- 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 Recreation Facilities Management 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania | $52,571 | 3 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus |
| Florida | $48,814 | 3 | University of Florida |
| North Carolina | $45,248 | 6 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
-
Kinesiology and Exercise Science (Bachelor's)
$54,562 national median · 481 schools
-
Parks and Recreation Studies (Bachelor's)
$50,983 national median · 39 schools
-
Broadcast and Digital Communication (Bachelor's)
$50,497 national median · 107 schools
-
Special Education (Bachelor's)
$50,499 national median · 94 schools
-
Clinical and Counseling Psychology (Bachelor's)
$50,523 national median · 40 schools
-
Interdisciplinary Studies (General) (Bachelor's)
$50,532 national median · 40 schools
-
History (Bachelor's)
$50,680 national median · 286 schools
-
Psychology (Bachelor's)
$50,706 national median · 783 schools
All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college