What Computer Science Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Computer Science pays $81,807 at the first measured horizon and $119,818 at the last, and those two medians rest on 36,315 and 25,231 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 $81,807 in the first year to $119,818 in the fifth, earnings grow 46% ($38,011). 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.

The Pell split adds a second lens on the $81,807 year-one median: graduates who received Pell Grants earn a median of $79,950, and graduates who did not earn $88,165, a gap of $8,215. Read it as a map of where each group studied and the networks they carried in, not as the degree paying two different wages for the same work.

Inside its own CIP family, Computer Science ranks 1 of 8 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $82,542. Its closest sibling is Information Science/Studies at $101,568, below this field's $119,818. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Computer Science stands number 3 by five-year earnings and number 6 by first-year earnings, and number 37 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 34 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 346 programs reporting debt. That is 24% of the first-year median earnings, or about 2.9 months of gross pay at $81,807 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

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 Computer Science among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Carnegie Mellon University at $271,805, against a national field median of $119,818.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; Carnegie Mellon University at $271,805 is evidence about a place and a mix of students, not a wage offer. Put the same programs' prices next to these figures with the degree cost calculator and the net price estimator before ranking anything.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 3.5% of the 25,231 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 $271,805 sits 127% above the national field median of $119,818. Its median debt, $19,000, runs below the field median of $19,500, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.