What Animal Sciences Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Animal Sciences pays $38,523 at the first measured horizon and $57,898 at the last, and those two medians rest on 6,639 and 7,085 graduates counted respectively. The headline figures weight each reporting program by its graduates counted, so the 400-graduate program moves the national number more than the 12-graduate one; the unweighted column beside it shows the middle program, plain and simple.

From $38,523 in the first year to $57,898 in the fifth, earnings grow 50% ($19,375). For scale, the median bachelor's field in the Scorecard file grows from $45,010 to $65,763 over the same span, so this field's early-career slope is steeper than typical.

Scorecard separates the first-year figure by Pell history for this field: $37,543 for graduates who received Pell, $40,361 for those who did not. The $2,818 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, Animal Sciences ranks 5 of 8 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $57,898. Its closest sibling is Agricultural Public Services at $58,622, above this field's $57,898. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Animal Sciences stands number 124 by five-year earnings and number 147 by first-year earnings, and number 51 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: $19,500 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Animal Sciences, pooled from 85 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $38,523 that balance is 51% of a year's gross pay, roughly 6.1 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $222 a month and $7,094 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

Where a student studies inside this field matters at least as much as the field itself. These five programs post the strongest five-year medians in Animal Sciences among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Auburn University at $74,560, against a national field median of $57,898.

High program medians concentrate in high-wage metros and selective intakes, so read $74,560 as a market fact before reading it as a quality verdict. Costs for the same programs are checkable in the degree cost calculator and the net price estimator.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 5.3% of the 7,085 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 $74,560 sits 29% above the national field median of $57,898. Its median debt, $19,250, runs below the field median of $19,500, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.