What Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology pays $44,074 at the first measured horizon and $72,234 at the last, and those two medians rest on 6,643 and 5,991 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.

The trajectory is the story here: $44,074 at year one, $66,885 at year four, $72,234 at year five. That is 64% growth across the window Scorecard measures, worth $28,160 a year by the fifth year. Fields with flat early curves repay debt slowly; this one's curve works in the borrower’s favor.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology are $43,913 (received Pell) and $44,084 (did not), $171 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, Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology ranks 4 of 10 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $70,226. Its closest sibling is Microbiological Sciences and Immunology at $70,530, below this field's $72,234. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology stands number 70 by five-year earnings and number 102 by first-year earnings, and number 42 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 28 places.

The debt side of the same degree

The median graduate in this field leaves school owing $19,500 in federal loans, the graduate-weighted median across the 146 programs reporting debt. That is 44% of the first-year median earnings, or about 5.3 months of gross pay at $44,074 a year. On the standard 10-year plan at the 2026-27 undergraduate rate of 6.52%, the payment is $222 a month and interest adds $7,094 over the life of the loan. Price your own borrowing with the student loan payoff calculator, and test the whole degree in the college ROI calculator or the college major ROI calculator.

Where graduates of this field earn the most

The national median hides the real spread: inside Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, individual programs post five-year medians far from $72,234 in both directions. Below are the highest, filtered to programs with 30 or more graduates counted at five years; Northeastern University sits first at $94,850.

High program medians concentrate in high-wage metros and selective intakes, so read $94,850 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 4.4% of the 5,991 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 $94,850 sits 31% above the national field median of $72,234. Its median debt, $17,817, runs below the field median of $19,500, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.