What Design and Applied Arts Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Design and Applied Arts pays $39,579 at the first measured horizon and $57,987 at the last, and those two medians rest on 21,551 and 19,920 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 $39,579 in the first year to $57,987 in the fifth, earnings grow 47% ($18,408). 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.

One more cut of the year-one data: Pell recipients in Design and Applied Arts post a median of $39,694, non-recipients $43,177. That $3,483 gap is the distance between two different student populations studying under one field name, and it narrows or widens by institution, which the program table below hints at.

Inside its own CIP family, Design and Applied Arts ranks 1 of 8 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $45,592. Its closest sibling is Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management at $52,813, below this field's $57,987. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Design and Applied Arts stands number 123 by five-year earnings and number 141 by first-year earnings, and number 154 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 31 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $23,833 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Design and Applied Arts, pooled from 255 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $39,579 that balance is 60% of a year's gross pay, roughly 7.2 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $271 a month and $8,670 in total interest. Your own balance and rate belong in the student loan payoff calculator; the degree-level verdict belongs in the college ROI calculator and 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 Design and Applied Arts among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Carnegie Mellon University at $131,766, against a national field median of $57,987.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; Carnegie Mellon University at $131,766 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 1.0% of the 19,920 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 $131,766 sits 127% above the national field median of $57,987. Its median debt, $21,000, runs below the field median of $23,833, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.