What English Language and Literature, General Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: English Language and Literature, General pays $36,108 at the first measured horizon and $51,613 at the last, and those two medians rest on 26,550 and 36,518 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.

Five years out, the median graduate earns $51,613, which is $15,505 more than the year-one median of $36,108 (43% 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 below it.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for English Language and Literature, General are $35,000 (received Pell) and $39,224 (did not), $4,224 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, English Language and Literature, General ranks 2 of 3 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $51,613. Its closest sibling is English Language and Literature/Letters, Other at $48,323, below this field's $51,613. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, English Language and Literature, General stands number 155 by five-year earnings and number 164 by first-year earnings, and number 36 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 119 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $19,437 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in English Language and Literature, General, pooled from 432 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $36,108 that balance is 54% of a year's gross pay, roughly 6.5 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $221 a month and $7,071 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

One field, many markets: the five-year median for English Language and Literature, General is $51,613 nationally, yet the strongest programs below run far ahead of it. The ranking keeps a 30-graduate floor under every entry, and College of the Holy Cross heads the list at $79,617.

High program medians concentrate in high-wage metros and selective intakes, so read $79,617 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 0.7% of the 36,518 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 $79,617 sits 54% above the national field median of $51,613. Its median debt, $23,000, runs above the field median of $19,437, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.