What Biology, General Graduates Earn
How much do Biology, General bachelor's graduates earn?
Graduates of bachelor's programs in Biology, General earn a median of $37,351 one year after graduation and $66,905 five years out, across the 847 programs reporting to College Scorecard. The median debt at graduation is $20,375.
The after side of the Biology, General decision: a $37,351 start, $66,905 by year five, and $20,375 of median debt, measured by the federal government rather than surveyed by marketers.
Updated November 5, 2026
Median earnings at 1, 4, and 5 years (College Scorecard)
The three rows below are the whole earnings story Scorecard can tell about Biology, General: $37,351, then $59,151, then $66,905. Each median is graduate-weighted, built from 847 programs at year one and 933 at year five, and the unweighted program median sits alongside so a reader can see how much the weighting itself is doing.
| Horizon | Median earnings (graduate-weighted) | Median program (unweighted) | Graduates counted | Share earning above the high-school threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year after graduation | $37,351 | $37,360 | 76,607 | 45.0% |
| 4 years after graduation | $59,151 | $57,551 | 62,158 | n/p |
| 5 years after graduation | $66,905 | $64,790 | 75,618 | 75.2% |
Five years out, the median graduate earns $66,905, which is $29,554 more than the year-one median of $37,351 (79% growth). Set against the median field overall ($45,010 at year one, $65,763 at year five), this field starts below the pack and ends above it.
By Pell status, the year-one medians for Biology, General are $37,269 (received Pell) and $38,471 (did not), $1,202 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, Biology, General ranks 8 of 10 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $70,226. Its closest sibling is Physiology, Pathology and Related Sciences at $68,886, above this field's $66,905. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.
Ranked across all 182 published fields, Biology, General stands number 89 by five-year earnings and number 157 by first-year earnings, and number 79 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 10 places.
The debt side of the same degree
The median graduate in this field leaves school owing $20,375 in federal loans, the graduate-weighted median across the 880 programs reporting debt. That is 55% of the first-year median earnings, or about 6.5 months of gross pay at $37,351 a year. On the standard 10-year plan at the 2026-27 undergraduate rate of 6.52%, the payment is $232 a month and interest adds $7,412 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
Program medians scatter widely around the national $66,905 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. College of Saint Mary leads it at $123,133.
| Institution | Median earnings, 5 years | Median earnings, 1 year | Median debt | Graduates counted (5yr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| College of Saint Mary | $123,133 | n/p | n/p | 37 |
| University of the Pacific | $115,305 | $31,214 | $18,750 | 86 |
| University of Detroit Mercy | $101,568 | $28,438 | $18,642 | 74 |
| Santa Clara University | $100,198 | $46,955 | $19,500 | 44 |
| High Point University | $99,791 | $36,356 | $26,027 | 34 |
High program medians concentrate in high-wage metros and selective intakes, so read $123,133 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 0.4% of the 75,618 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 $123,133 sits 84% above the national field median of $66,905. Its graduates' debt figure is not published, one of the gaps this page leaves visible rather than filling.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Biology, General graduates earn?
The national median is $37,351 one year after graduation and $66,905 five years after, across the 847 bachelor's programs reporting 1-year earnings to College Scorecard (October 2026 release), weighted by graduates counted.
How much debt do Biology, General graduates carry?
The median cumulative federal loan debt at graduation is $20,375. On a standard 10-year plan at 6.52% that is $232 a month and $7,412 of interest in total.
How were the Biology, General national figures computed?
Scorecard publishes one median per program; this page takes the median of those program medians weighted by each program's graduates counted (76,607 people at year one), and prints the unweighted median program beside it. The field cleared a publication bar of at least 10 programs reporting at every horizon.
Is a degree in Biology, General worth it?
The inputs are on this page: $66,905 median earnings at year five against $20,375 median debt. The verdict depends on your actual cost, so run your numbers through the college ROI calculator and the college major ROI calculator.