Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Sociology (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Sociology earn a median of $52,657 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $37,665 and $69,502. We rank the 314 U.S. colleges whose Sociology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 25,513 graduates in all. That puts Sociology at #95 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Columbia University in the City of New York, in New York, leads at $101,536, 95% above the median ranked school ($52,121). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $47,876 and $56,863, and the lowest earns $32,182, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 147 of the 314 ranked schools (47%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 7 public, 13 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. New York places 6 schools in the top 20, ahead of California (5).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $28,168 a year, against $16,467 across all 314 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,500 in federal loans, about 28% 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 314 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,536 | 39 † | $27,000 | $21,590 | 1.3 |
| 2 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $81,722 | 27 † | $19,250 | $29,519 | 3.0 |
| 3 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,200 | 34 † | $11,650 | $28,690 | 3.1 |
| 4 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,581 | 58 | $25,495 | $44,338 | 4.9 |
| 5 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $71,363 | 229 | $13,000 | $13,481 | 1.6 |
| 6 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,555 | 91 | $9,625 | $32,740 | 3.9 |
| 7 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,121 | 44 | $18,500 | $41,704 | 5.7 |
| 8 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $69,883 | 50 | $16,500 | $16,665 | 2.0 |
| 9 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,704 | 29 † | $19,800 | $26,780 | 3.2 |
| 10 | Northeastern University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $69,585 | 27 † | $27,000 | $30,915 | 4.3 |
| 11 | University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA Public · 4-year | $68,538 | 55 | $19,239 | $21,565 | 2.7 |
| 12 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $68,260 | 32 † | $24,208 | $27,646 | 3.5 |
| 13 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,053 | 62 | $17,750 | $48,381 | 6.2 |
| 14 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,044 | 39 † | $24,500 | $38,793 | 5.0 |
| 15 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $65,974 | 63 | $18,800 | $15,678 | 2.2 |
| 16 | Brandeis University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,481 | 26 † | $27,000 | $35,736 | 5.8 |
| 17 | SUNY College at Geneseo Geneseo, NY Public · 4-year | $65,234 | 25 † | $19,500 | $18,211 | 2.5 |
| 18 | National University San Diego, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,860 | 38 † | $27,687 | $22,878 | 3.3 |
| 19 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $64,797 | 72 | $19,500 | $21,620 | 3.0 |
| 20 | Providence College Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,750 | 26 † | $27,000 | $48,523 | 8.0 |
| 21 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $64,692 | 610 | $14,453 | $12,548 | 1.8 |
| 22 | College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,642 | 41 | $26,449 | $38,782 | 6.6 |
| 23 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $64,603 | 33 † | $16,676 | $17,915 | 2.6 |
| 24 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,791 | 27 † | $26,375 | $24,402 | 4.3 |
| 25 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,764 | 27 † | $16,375 | $37,244 | 5.1 |
| 26 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $63,654 | 109 | $22,562 | $24,953 | 3.7 |
| 27 | Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA Public · 4-year | $63,608 | 57 | $21,950 | $18,476 | 3.2 |
| 28 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $63,419 | 94 | $18,419 | $13,138 | 1.8 |
| 29 | Gonzaga University Spokane, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,626 | 40 | $25,125 | $35,119 | 6.4 |
| 30 | California State University-East Bay Hayward, CA Public · 4-year | $62,427 | 225 | $17,757 | $9,320 | 1.5 |
| 31 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $62,385 | 121 | $15,000 | $12,278 | 1.9 |
| 32 | Moravian University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,315 | 38 † | $27,000 | $30,670 | 4.8 |
| 33 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $62,204 | 145 | $25,845 | $19,680 | 2.9 |
| 34 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,047 | 27 † | $20,000 | $46,555 | 7.4 |
| 35 | University of Mount Saint Vincent Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,964 | 26 † | $24,616 | $21,696 | 3.3 |
| 36 | University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,883 | 45 | $24,125 | $41,431 | 6.7 |
| 37 | Manhattanville University Purchase, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,752 | 27 † | $26,000 | $20,991 | 3.2 |
| 38 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $61,725 | 53 | $23,197 | $17,799 | 2.8 |
| 39 | Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,429 | 37 † | $20,500 | $36,079 | 5.7 |
| 40 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,425 | 26 † | — | $29,612 | 4.3 |
| 41 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $61,149 | 34 † | $23,250 | $28,384 | 4.5 |
| 42 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $61,124 | 43 | $15,875 | $13,936 | 2.0 |
| 43 | Suffolk University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,032 | 65 | $27,000 | $29,618 | 5.9 |
| 44 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,635 | 36 † | $23,000 | $28,719 | 4.3 |
| 45 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $60,292 | 99 | $18,181 | $14,091 | 2.9 |
| 46 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,277 | 70 | $14,000 | $15,564 | 2.9 |
| 47 | University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Public · 4-year | $60,013 | 635 | $13,500 | $16,109 | 2.8 |
| 48 | CUNY York College Jamaica, NY Public · 4-year | $59,899 | 59 | $10,450 | $4,456 | 0.7 |
| 49 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $59,684 | 70 | $19,500 | $25,097 | 4.6 |
| 50 | Rhode Island College Providence, RI Public · 4-year | $59,643 | 54 | $17,805 | $9,478 | 2.0 |
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 Sociology (CIP 4511, 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 314.
- 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 Sociology 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | $58,529 | 14 | Boston College |
| Washington | $57,846 | 7 | Central Washington University |
| New York | $57,029 | 26 | Columbia University in the City of New York |
| Connecticut | $55,774 | 4 | University of Connecticut |
| California | $55,436 | 38 | University of California-Berkeley |
| New Hampshire | $54,785 | 3 | Dartmouth College |
| Oregon | $54,479 | 4 | Oregon State University |
| Virginia | $54,396 | 10 | University of Virginia-Main Campus |
| Maryland | $54,197 | 9 | University of Maryland-College Park |
| Illinois | $53,855 | 14 | Loyola University Chicago |
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