slides: New England Colleges With the Highest-Paid Grads 2013-14

Monday, September 16, 2013

Tracey Minkin, GoLocalWorcester Features Editor

As New England's college students settle in to their classes, it's time to ask the question: who will emerge with the best salaries, and who will do the best overall when it comes to earnings?

This is the driving question behind PayScale's annual College Salary Report, and the results for 2013-14 have just been released.

For the 20 New England colleges with the highest paid graduates, check out the ranking, plus starting and mid-career salaries, below.

WPI + Holy Cross make New England's Top 10

In PayScale's new ranking, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) was the highest-ranking college in Central Massachusetts, placing #8 in New England and #33 nationally. Holy Cross ranked just below WPI in New England at #9 and #36 nationally. (To see more details about WPI and Holy Cross, see the slides, below.)

Central Massachusetts colleges + salaries

Following WPI and Holy Cross were:

#384 Nichols College, with a starting salary of $35,000 and a mid-career salary of $76,500;

#431 Assumption College, with a starting salary of $43,700 and a mid-career salary of $74,800;

#539 Worcester State University, with a starting salary of $40,300 and a mid-career salary of $70,700; and

#583 Fitchburg State College, with a starting salary of $41,800 and a mid-career salary of $69,200.

How much is that first degree really worth?

To arrive at its rankings, PayScale focused on the salaries of bachelor degree holders--not those who have gone on to gain higher degrees. For 2013-14, PayScale tabulated data from 1.4 million bachelor-degree only, full-time civilian employees working in the US (self-employed, project-based, and contract employees not included). The sample size for each school included ranges from ~100 profiles to several thousand profiles, depending largely upon the size of the school.

Assessing salaries

For assessing graduating salary, Payscale tabulated data for full-time employees with five years of experience or less in their career or field who held a bachelor’s degree and no higher degrees; the typical (median) starting employee was 25 years old and had two years of experience. For mid-career salary (the basis of the rankings), Payscale assessed salaries of full-time employees with at least 10 years of experience in their career or field who held a bachelor’s degree and no higher degrees; typical (median) mid-career employee was 42 years old with 15 years of experience.

For its assessment of salary, PayScale combined base annual salary or hourly wage, bonuses, profit sharing, tips, commissions, overtime, and other forms of cash earnings, as applicable. (Salary did not include equity compensation, which can be a significant portion of pay for some executive and high-tech job. In addition, salary did not include cash value of retirement benefits, or value of other non-cash benefits, e.g. healthcare.) For more on PayScale's methodology, go here.

What were the Top 20 New England colleges with the highest paid graduates in the new ranking? Check out the ranking, plus starting and mid-career salaries, below.

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