What Agricultural Production Operations Graduates Earn

Median earnings at 1, 4, and 5 years (College Scorecard)

Nothing on this page is a survey response or a recruiter's claim: the $36,821 year-one median and the $52,075 year-five median for Agricultural Production Operations come from federal earnings records pooled across 71 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (390 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

Earnings in this field climb $15,254 between the first and fifth year, a 41% rise that trails the all-fields pattern (the median field in this dataset pays $45,010 at year one and $65,763 at year five). Early-career growth this shape usually means the first job is a foothold: licensure, a portfolio, or a first promotion does the heavy lifting.

Scorecard separates the first-year figure by Pell history for this field: $42,294 for graduates who received Pell, $40,196 for those who did not. The $2,098 difference tracks institutional mix and starting networks far more than it tracks the credential itself, and it is printed here because a Pell student comparing programs deserves the unblended number.

Inside its own CIP family, Agricultural Production Operations ranks 7 of 8 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $57,898. Its closest sibling is Agriculture, General at $57,022, above this field's $52,075. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Agricultural Production Operations stands number 153 by five-year earnings and number 162 by first-year earnings, and number 80 from the lowest median debt. Those three ranks together are the field's fingerprint: high earn rank with a low debt rank is the combination students are actually shopping for, and this field's spread between them is 73 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $20,375 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Agricultural Production Operations, pooled from 16 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $36,821 that balance is 55% of a year's gross pay, roughly 6.6 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $232 a month and $7,412 in total interest. Your own balance and rate belong in the student loan payoff calculator; the degree-level verdict belongs in the college ROI calculator and the college major ROI calculator.

Where graduates of this field earn the most

Program medians scatter widely around the national $52,075 five-year figure. The table ranks the reporting programs by their five-year median, keeping only programs with at least 30 graduates in that count so a tiny cohort cannot top the list by luck. North Dakota State University-Main Campus leads it at $80,659.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; North Dakota State University-Main Campus at $80,659 is evidence about a place and a mix of students, not a wage offer. Put the same programs' prices next to these figures with the degree cost calculator and the net price estimator before ranking anything.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 51.3% of the 472 graduates counted at five years, so the top of the table is a thin slice and not the field's center; and the leading program's five-year median of $80,659 sits 55% above the national field median of $52,075. Its median debt, $23,246, runs above the field median of $20,375, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.