Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Writing and Rhetoric (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Writing and Rhetoric earn a median of $48,471 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $32,167 and $67,306. We rank the 80 U.S. colleges whose Writing and Rhetoric programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 5,994 graduates in all. That puts Writing and Rhetoric at #116 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, leads at $71,205, 40% above the median ranked school ($50,861). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $41,946 and $58,947, and the lowest earns $32,267. 45 of the 80 ranked schools (56%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 13 public, 7 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Texas places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Minnesota (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $18,940 a year, against $18,112 across all 80 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $20,250 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 3.0 years.
Showing the top 50 of 80 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $71,205 | 28 † | — | $31,944 | 3.7 |
| 2 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $69,373 | 41 | $13,000 | $13,481 | 1.7 |
| 3 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $68,314 | 96 | $21,323 | $19,857 | 2.4 |
| 4 | Clemson University Clemson, SC Public · 4-year | $67,102 | 54 | $20,250 | $22,253 | 2.8 |
| 5 | College of Saint Benedict Saint Joseph, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,449 | 37 † | — | $26,640 | 4.0 |
| 6 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,503 | 36 † | $13,728 | $18,809 | 2.9 |
| 7 | Loyola University Maryland Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,745 | 27 † | $27,000 | $30,574 | 4.9 |
| 8 | University of North Texas Denton, TX Public · 4-year | $62,703 | 137 | $17,931 | $15,649 | 2.2 |
| 9 | Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,473 | 30 † | $25,000 | $31,487 | 5.1 |
| 10 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $62,383 | 264 | $20,000 | $17,915 | 2.8 |
| 11 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ Public · 4-year | $61,676 | 79 | $23,495 | $14,967 | 2.4 |
| 12 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $61,474 | 95 | $23,250 | $28,384 | 4.5 |
| 13 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,159 | 46 | $23,250 | $38,793 | 6.1 |
| 14 | Utah State University Logan, UT Public · 4-year | $60,940 | 29 † | — | $14,936 | 2.7 |
| 15 | Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX Public · 4-year | $60,563 | 111 | $20,494 | $19,070 | 3.0 |
| 16 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $60,415 | 244 | $18,689 | $16,778 | 3.0 |
| 17 | Metropolitan State University Saint Paul, MN Public · 4-year | $59,779 | 30 † | $13,095 | $16,863 | 3.1 |
| 18 | The University of Texas at Arlington Arlington, TX Public · 4-year | $59,430 | 54 | $12,917 | $13,951 | 2.3 |
| 19 | Grand Canyon University Phoenix, AZ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $59,281 | 39 † | $21,500 | $22,472 | 3.9 |
| 20 | San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA Public · 4-year | $59,032 | 80 | $16,689 | $12,278 | 2.2 |
| 21 | Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $58,918 | 80 | $17,813 | $15,327 | 3.4 |
| 22 | Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year | $58,484 | 137 | $20,045 | $16,805 | 2.8 |
| 23 | St. Joseph's University-New York Brooklyn, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,305 | 114 | $21,500 | $19,035 | 3.5 |
| 24 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $57,179 | 50 | $21,891 | $23,322 | 4.5 |
| 25 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $57,012 | 328 | $24,046 | $30,434 | 5.9 |
| 26 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $56,662 | 68 | $24,360 | $19,680 | 3.6 |
| 27 | Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Carbondale, IL Public · 4-year | $56,632 | 28 † | — | $13,297 | 2.6 |
| 28 | University of New Mexico-Main Campus Albuquerque, NM Public · 4-year | $56,244 | 126 | $13,984 | $15,489 | 2.6 |
| 29 | University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $55,361 | 39 † | $27,649 | $11,900 | 3.2 |
| 30 | Missouri State University-Springfield Springfield, MO Public · 4-year | $54,917 | 36 † | $21,793 | $17,613 | 3.5 |
| 31 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,848 | 30 † | $21,000 | $22,585 | 4.3 |
| 32 | University of South Florida Tampa, FL Public · 4-year | $54,778 | 27 † | — | $9,812 | 1.9 |
| 33 | Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA Public · 4-year | $54,390 | 256 | $25,000 | $14,638 | 3.3 |
| 34 | University of Wisconsin-Stout Menomonie, WI Public · 4-year | $53,436 | 42 | $25,000 | $17,490 | 4.4 |
| 35 | University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI Public · 4-year | $52,625 | 27 † | $20,500 | $21,440 | 7.0 |
| 36 | DePauw University Greencastle, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $51,983 | 32 † | — | $22,264 | 5.7 |
| 37 | Emerson College Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $51,742 | 134 | $23,776 | $49,180 | 18.4 |
| 38 | California State University-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $51,414 | 262 | $12,500 | $3,967 | 1.1 |
| 39 | Ithaca College Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $51,001 | 25 † | $25,000 | $33,926 | 8.9 |
| 40 | Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI Public · 4-year | $50,875 | 25 † | $26,000 | $10,775 | 2.7 |
| 41 | Weber State University Ogden, UT Public · 4-year | $50,847 | 30 † | $20,991 | $10,258 | 3.3 |
| 42 | Bowling Green State University-Main Campus Bowling Green, OH Public · 4-year | $50,120 | 177 | $26,000 | $24,022 | 6.8 |
| 43 | Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN Public · 4-year | $49,918 | 26 † | $18,875 | $14,600 | 4.3 |
| 44 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $49,366 | 40 | $19,300 | $21,620 | 6.3 |
| 45 | Oglethorpe University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $48,774 | 26 † | $27,000 | $19,509 | 5.2 |
| 46 | Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $48,189 | 33 † | $25,000 | $49,430 | 13.8 |
| 47 | Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Kutztown, PA Public · 4-year | $47,530 | 35 † | $26,000 | $21,331 | 7.7 |
| 48 | Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA Public · 4-year | $47,439 | 70 | $25,000 | $15,267 | 4.5 |
| 49 | Champlain College Burlington, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $47,141 | 37 † | $26,000 | $35,860 | 14.5 |
| 50 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $47,124 | 54 | $14,000 | $14,091 | 8.7 |
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 Writing and Rhetoric (CIP 2313, 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 80.
- 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 Writing and Rhetoric 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | $60,563 | 5 | The University of Texas at Austin |
| Minnesota | $60,097 | 4 | College of Saint Benedict |
| Arizona | $59,281 | 3 | Arizona State University Campus Immersion |
| Virginia | $57,179 | 3 | George Mason University |
| New York | $49,366 | 7 | Syracuse University |
| Georgia | $48,482 | 4 | Emory University |
| Pennsylvania | $47,530 | 5 | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Ohio | $46,576 | 4 | Miami University-Oxford |
| Illinois | $44,004 | 5 | Southern Illinois University-Carbondale |
| Michigan | $43,621 | 6 | Michigan State University |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
-
English (Bachelor's)
$48,590 national median · 378 schools
-
Family and Consumer Sciences (Bachelor's)
$48,460 national median · 42 schools
-
Human Development and Family Studies (Bachelor's)
$48,568 national median · 119 schools
-
Human Services (Bachelor's)
$48,597 national median · 64 schools
-
Arts and Media Management (Bachelor's)
$48,240 national median · 29 schools
-
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (Bachelor's)
$48,842 national median · 30 schools
-
Teacher Education (Levels and Methods) (Bachelor's)
$47,382 national median · 501 schools
-
Animal Science (Bachelor's)
$49,634 national median · 65 schools
All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college