What Anthropology 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 $34,545 year-one median and the $51,512 year-five median for Anthropology come from federal earnings records pooled across 483 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (6,457 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

Earnings in this field climb $16,967 between the first and fifth year, a 49% 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.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Anthropology are $36,083 (received Pell) and $37,955 (did not), $1,872 apart. The split is a reminder that a field median averages over very different starting points; the institution a student picks inside the field moves their personal figure more than the field label does.

Inside its own CIP family, Anthropology ranks 10 of 10 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $63,401. Its closest sibling is Sociology at $57,111, above this field's $51,512. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Anthropology stands number 156 by five-year earnings and number 168 by first-year earnings, and number 65 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 91 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Across the 131 programs that report debt for Anthropology, the median graduate owes $19,827. Set beside the $34,545 year-one median, the debt is 57% of first-year gross earnings, about 6.9 months of pay before tax. Repaid on the standard 10-year schedule at 6.52%, it costs $225 monthly and $7,213 in interest. The student loan payoff calculator replays that schedule with your numbers, and the college ROI calculator weighs the full cost against the earnings table above.

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 Anthropology among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Emory University at $64,910, against a national field median of $51,512.

High program medians concentrate in high-wage metros and selective intakes, so read $64,910 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 5.9% of the 7,278 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 $64,910 sits 26% above the national field median of $51,512. Its median debt, $11,958, runs below the field median of $19,827, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.