What Education, General Graduates Earn

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

The three rows below are the whole earnings story Scorecard can tell about Education, General: $43,747, then $49,646, then $51,190. Each median is graduate-weighted, built from 68 programs at year one and 75 at year five, and the unweighted program median sits alongside so a reader can see how much the weighting itself is doing.

From $43,747 in the first year to $51,190 in the fifth, earnings grow 17% ($7,443). 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 gentler than typical.

Scorecard separates the first-year figure by Pell history for this field: $43,377 for graduates who received Pell, $46,457 for those who did not. The $3,080 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, Education, General ranks 4 of 6 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $51,190. Its closest sibling is Special Education and Teaching at $51,998, above this field's $51,190. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Education, General stands number 158 by five-year earnings and number 107 by first-year earnings, and number 23 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 135 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $18,955 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Education, General, pooled from 75 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $43,747 that balance is 43% of a year's gross pay, roughly 5.2 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $215 a month and $6,896 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

The national median hides the real spread: inside Education, General, individual programs post five-year medians far from $51,190 in both directions. Below are the highest, filtered to programs with 30 or more graduates counted at five years; University of Washington-Seattle Campus sits first at $71,281.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; University of Washington-Seattle Campus at $71,281 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 4.9% of the 5,675 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 $71,281 sits 39% above the national field median of $51,190. Its median debt, $10,372, runs below the field median of $18,955, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.