What Biotechnology Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Biotechnology pays $50,718 at the first measured horizon and $81,453 at the last, and those two medians rest on 531 and 405 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: $50,718 at year one, $78,735 at year four, $81,453 at year five. That is 61% growth across the window Scorecard measures, worth $30,735 a year by the fifth year. Fields with flat early curves repay debt slowly; this one's curve works in the borrower’s favor.

Scorecard separates the first-year figure by Pell history for this field: $51,620 for graduates who received Pell, $48,585 for those who did not. The $3,035 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, Biotechnology ranks 2 of 10 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $70,226. Its closest sibling is Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Other at $84,900, above this field's $81,453. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Biotechnology stands number 51 by five-year earnings and number 72 by first-year earnings, and number 14 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 37 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Across the 18 programs that report debt for Biotechnology, the median graduate owes $18,167. Set beside the $50,718 year-one median, the debt is 36% of first-year gross earnings, about 4.3 months of pay before tax. Repaid on the standard 10-year schedule at 6.52%, it costs $206 monthly and $6,609 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 Biotechnology among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by University of California-Davis at $109,020, against a national field median of $81,453.

Treat the top of this table as a research list, not a ranking to enroll by: medians reflect local labor markets and student mix as much as teaching. The honest comparison pairs each program's earnings here with its net price from the net price estimator and its four-year total from the degree cost calculator.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 55.8% of the 405 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 $109,020 sits 34% above the national field median of $81,453. Its median debt, $14,899, runs below the field median of $18,167, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.