California college graduates among wealthiest alumni in US: report
LOS ANGELES - If you graduated from a college in California, you're apparently among the highest-earning college grads in the U.S.
That's according to a new study conducted by higher education research group DegreeChoices, which ranked California fourth on its list of big earners in America. In the Golden State, graduates earn an average annual salary of $58,441 four years after leaving college, data shows.
Graduates from the California Institute of Technology have the highest median salary of any college alumni in the entire state and across the entire country. Four years after completing their degree, Caltech graduates earn an estimated $139,418.
First on the list was Massachusetts, where college grads apparently earn an average annual salary of $59,862 four years after leaving college. There, alumni at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) earned the most, with an annual salary of $129,392.
Connecticut, New Jersey, and Nevada rounded out the top five.
Dartmouth College was the only Ivy League school to rank as the institution with the highest-earning graduates in any state.
SUGGESTED:
- Most Americans cannot afford a $1K emergency expense
- Study: Gen Z, millennials are ‘obsessed’ with idea of being rich
- When will the IRS send out tax refunds
- Here are the US states where you’ll pay less individual income tax in 2024
"Unsurprisingly, the Northeast seems to produce more higher-earning graduates than any other region of America. With a number of quality educational opportunities and a high cost of living compared to the South and Midwest, it remains to be seen whether these institutions retain their popularity over the next few years or if college prospects opt for more affordable regions of America," said David Levy, author at DegreeChoices.
To get these results, data was gathered from CollegeScorecard on the median earnings of graduates working and not enrolled four years after completing in 2022. The median earnings were gathered for over 5,500 institutions predominately offering four-year degrees, with an average aggregated for each state in America. The states were then ranked based on the highest average earnings, with the top-performing institution in each state identified.