What is the College Degree that Pays the Highest Starting Salary?Computer Engineers Top the List for 2004

According to a quarterly starting-salary salary from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), computer engineering majors are the highest paid professionals just out of college, with an average starting salary of $53,117.

This compares favorably to majors of Chemical Engineering ($52,563 per annum), Electrical Engineering ($49,926), and Mechanical Engineering ($49,088) with Computer Science majors rounding out the top five at $48,656. The top figure for Computer Engineering majors rose 0.7% since last year.

Increasing confidence in the much-battered technology sector can be viewed as part of the reason for the high need for computer engineers.

Promising Signs for Computer Engineering

Overall, college and university graduates who majored in computer engineering have to be more optimistic than in recent years. In the survey, employers said they expect hiring of college graduates to be up 12.7% from last year, the first hiring increase in two years, according to NACE spokesperson Camille Luckenbaugh. Figures in majors at the bottom of the scale, such as Elementary Education majors (ranked at $27,317, or 6.8% lower than last year) and psychology majors, who had an average starting salary of $25,032 (last on the chart), a decrease of 8% from last year.

The surveyed majors covered 2,300 offers, and the majority of college majors were reporting increases in starting salaries, with computer science majors enjoying the highest increase over last year at 8.9%. Only one-third of college or university majors are experiencing a drop in starting salaries, compared to nearly half at this time last year.