What Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy pays $42,930 at the first measured horizon and $57,893 at the last, and those two medians rest on 1,454 and 1,375 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 $42,930 in the first year to $57,893 in the fifth, earnings grow 35% ($14,963). 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.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy are $45,827 (received Pell) and $40,913 (did not), $4,914 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, Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy ranks 3 of 4 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $57,893. Its closest sibling is Natural Resources Conservation and Research at $60,365, above this field's $57,893. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy stands number 125 by five-year earnings and number 115 by first-year earnings, and number 76 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 49 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $20,250 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy, pooled from 28 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $42,930 that balance is 47% of a year's gross pay, roughly 5.7 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $230 a month and $7,367 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

Program medians scatter widely around the national $57,893 five-year figure. The table ranks the reporting programs by their five-year median, keeping only programs with at least 30 graduates in that count so a tiny cohort cannot top the list by luck. California State University-Bakersfield leads it at $85,390.

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 13.8% of the 1,375 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 $85,390 sits 47% above the national field median of $57,893. Its graduates' debt figure is not published, one of the gaps this page leaves visible rather than filling.