What Graphic Communications Graduates Earn

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

Nothing on this page is a survey response or a recruiter's claim: the $28,397 year-one median and the $47,454 year-five median for Graphic Communications come from federal earnings records pooled across 156 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (3,464 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

The trajectory is the story here: $28,397 at year one, $43,058 at year four, $47,454 at year five. That is 67% growth across the window Scorecard measures, worth $19,057 a year by the fifth year. Fields with flat early curves repay debt slowly; this one's curve works in the borrower’s favor.

The Pell split adds a second lens on the $28,397 year-one median: graduates who received Pell Grants earn a median of $27,642, and graduates who did not earn $27,525, a gap of $117. 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, Graphic Communications ranks 2 of 2 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $47,454. Its closest sibling is Audiovisual Communications Technologies/Technicians at $47,556, above this field's $47,454. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Graphic Communications stands number 173 by five-year earnings and number 181 by first-year earnings, and number 156 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 17 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $24,000 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Graphic Communications, pooled from 55 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $28,397 that balance is 85% of a year's gross pay, roughly 10.1 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $273 a month and $8,731 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 Graphic Communications among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Ringling College of Art and Design at $93,383, against a national field median of $47,454.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; Ringling College of Art and Design at $93,383 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 13.5% of the 2,746 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 $93,383 sits 97% above the national field median of $47,454. Its median debt, $27,000, runs above the field median of $24,000, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.