Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Teacher Education (Subject Areas) (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Teacher Education (Subject Areas) earn a median of $51,389 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $40,539 and $63,098. We rank the 236 U.S. colleges whose Teacher Education (Subject Areas) programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 17,315 graduates in all. That puts Teacher Education (Subject Areas) at #100 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
CUNY Brooklyn College, in New York, leads at $80,207, 56% above the median ranked school ($51,272). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $48,068 and $55,655, and the lowest earns $33,933, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 116 of the 236 ranked schools (49%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 16 public, 4 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 75% are public. New York places 9 schools in the top 20, ahead of New Jersey (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $18,367 a year, against $16,847 across all 236 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,160 in federal loans, about 33% 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 2.4 years.
Showing the top 50 of 236 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | CUNY Brooklyn College Brooklyn, NY Public · 4-year | $80,207 | 52 | $13,857 | $3,103 | 0.3 |
| 2 | St. John's University-New York Queens, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,215 | 30 † | $24,668 | $29,999 | 2.8 |
| 3 | CUNY Queens College Queens, NY Public · 4-year | $76,925 | 69 | $15,178 | $4,195 | 0.4 |
| 4 | University of Louisville Louisville, KY Public · 4-year | $74,873 | 138 | $18,750 | $17,988 | 1.8 |
| 5 | Hofstra University Hempstead, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,525 | 25 † | $23,517 | $34,176 | 3.5 |
| 6 | CUNY Hunter College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $72,919 | 26 † | $15,504 | $2,984 | 0.3 |
| 7 | Adelphi University Garden City, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,416 | 36 † | $21,500 | $30,783 | 3.6 |
| 8 | Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Carbondale, IL Public · 4-year | $67,961 | 180 | $17,680 | $13,297 | 1.7 |
| 9 | SUNY Oneonta Oneonta, NY Public · 4-year | $66,128 | 44 | $18,750 | $19,158 | 2.5 |
| 10 | Montclair State University Montclair, NJ Public · 4-year | $65,007 | 83 | $25,500 | $15,566 | 2.2 |
| 11 | University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI Public · 4-year | $64,916 | 153 | $22,250 | $21,440 | 3.5 |
| 12 | California State University-Fullerton Fullerton, CA Public · 4-year | $63,798 | 60 | $14,265 | $6,555 | 1.0 |
| 13 | St. Joseph's University-New York Brooklyn, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,672 | 73 | $25,000 | $19,035 | 2.7 |
| 14 | University of Illinois Chicago Chicago, IL Public · 4-year | $63,233 | 53 | $15,495 | $10,974 | 1.6 |
| 15 | William Paterson University of New Jersey Wayne, NJ Public · 4-year | $63,203 | 28 † | $20,834 | $18,745 | 2.9 |
| 16 | State University of New York at Cortland Cortland, NY Public · 4-year | $63,201 | 143 | $21,485 | $22,345 | 3.3 |
| 17 | Kean University Union, NJ Public · 4-year | $63,156 | 149 | $24,500 | $12,447 | 1.9 |
| 18 | Western Washington University Bellingham, WA Public · 4-year | $63,072 | 30 † | $24,700 | $21,193 | 3.8 |
| 19 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $62,630 | 93 | $24,148 | $25,097 | 4.0 |
| 20 | California State University-Fresno Fresno, CA Public · 4-year | $62,475 | 69 | $15,000 | $7,000 | 1.1 |
| 21 | SUNY College at Geneseo Geneseo, NY Public · 4-year | $62,420 | 35 † | $21,554 | $18,211 | 2.7 |
| 22 | New Mexico Highlands University Las Vegas, NM Public · 4-year | $62,375 | 29 † | — | $14,838 | 2.0 |
| 23 | The College of New Jersey Ewing, NJ Public · 4-year | $62,281 | 179 | $25,000 | $27,646 | 4.4 |
| 24 | William Carey University Hattiesburg, MS Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,978 | 35 † | $21,875 | $14,258 | 1.8 |
| 25 | Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA Public · 4-year | $61,604 | 36 † | $22,068 | $18,476 | 3.5 |
| 26 | Rider University Lawrenceville, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,208 | 61 | $27,000 | $24,792 | 4.1 |
| 27 | Weber State University Ogden, UT Public · 4-year | $61,085 | 31 † | $27,750 | $10,258 | 1.8 |
| 28 | Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA Public · 4-year | $61,045 | 263 | $21,875 | $19,151 | 2.9 |
| 29 | Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,004 | 51 | $24,989 | $36,660 | 5.6 |
| 30 | Southern Connecticut State University New Haven, CT Public · 4-year | $60,780 | 65 | $22,250 | $20,857 | 3.6 |
| 31 | North Carolina A & T State University Greensboro, NC Public · 4-year | $60,703 | 54 | $19,750 | $10,846 | 1.6 |
| 32 | California State University-Chico Chico, CA Public · 4-year | $60,296 | 28 † | $22,358 | $14,480 | 2.5 |
| 33 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $59,979 | 83 | $21,696 | $17,915 | 3.1 |
| 34 | Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA Public · 4-year | $59,442 | 356 | $25,000 | $23,433 | 4.1 |
| 35 | State University of New York at Oswego Oswego, NY Public · 4-year | $59,412 | 161 | $21,500 | $16,236 | 2.7 |
| 36 | Salisbury University Salisbury, MD Public · 4-year | $59,311 | 56 | $22,275 | $17,743 | 3.3 |
| 37 | Ithaca College Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,902 | 35 † | $26,000 | $33,926 | 5.9 |
| 38 | Wayne State University Detroit, MI Public · 4-year | $58,743 | 111 | $21,250 | $12,766 | 2.1 |
| 39 | Indiana University-Bloomington Bloomington, IN Public · 4-year | $58,390 | 148 | $20,295 | $16,264 | 3.0 |
| 40 | Bridgewater State University Bridgewater, MA Public · 4-year | $58,255 | 246 | $24,490 | $16,383 | 3.8 |
| 41 | Texas Lutheran University Seguin, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,187 | 25 † | $27,000 | $24,654 | 4.2 |
| 42 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,957 | 55 | $25,500 | $30,902 | 5.7 |
| 43 | SUNY College at Potsdam Potsdam, NY Public · 4-year | $57,949 | 59 | $27,000 | $13,624 | 2.5 |
| 44 | Eastern Washington University Cheney, WA Public · 4-year | $57,915 | 95 | $20,344 | $13,886 | 3.2 |
| 45 | Rowan University Glassboro, NJ Public · 4-year | $57,739 | 549 | $25,250 | $22,408 | 4.3 |
| 46 | Baylor University Waco, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,434 | 76 | $27,000 | $41,104 | 7.3 |
| 47 | Florida State University Tallahassee, FL Public · 4-year | $57,287 | 85 | $22,195 | $11,297 | 2.0 |
| 48 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year | $57,022 | 83 | $23,129 | $17,303 | 3.0 |
| 49 | Central Connecticut State University New Britain, CT Public · 4-year | $56,607 | 95 | $22,500 | $16,857 | 3.6 |
| 50 | Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA Public · 4-year | $56,564 | 230 | $24,490 | $14,638 | 2.9 |
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 Teacher Education (Subject Areas) (CIP 1313, 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 236.
- 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 Teacher Education (Subject Areas) 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $63,437 | 16 | CUNY Brooklyn College |
| New Jersey | $62,719 | 6 | Montclair State University |
| Washington | $61,604 | 3 | Western Washington University |
| California | $61,386 | 4 | California State University-Fullerton |
| Connecticut | $60,780 | 3 | University of Connecticut |
| Texas | $57,434 | 5 | Texas Christian University |
| Maryland | $55,716 | 3 | Salisbury University |
| Illinois | $53,898 | 13 | Southern Illinois University-Carbondale |
| Virginia | $53,863 | 7 | George Mason University |
| Florida | $53,197 | 7 | Florida State University |
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