What Landscape Architecture 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 $59,043 year-one median and the $71,657 year-five median for Landscape Architecture come from federal earnings records pooled across 57 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (397 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

Earnings in this field climb $12,614 between the first and fifth year, a 21% rise that beats the all-fields pattern (the median field in this dataset pays $45,010 at year one and $65,763 at year five). Early-career growth this shape usually means the first job is a foothold: licensure, a portfolio, or a first promotion does the heavy lifting.

The Pell split adds a second lens on the $59,043 year-one median: graduates who received Pell Grants earn a median of $62,714, and graduates who did not earn $67,836, a gap of $5,122. 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, Landscape Architecture ranks 3 of 4 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $71,657. Its closest sibling is Architecture at $70,789, below this field's $71,657. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Landscape Architecture stands number 74 by five-year earnings and number 53 by first-year earnings, and number 70 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 4 places.

The debt side of the same degree

What does the median Landscape Architecture graduate owe? $20,000, the graduate-weighted median over 12 programs with published debt figures. The ratio that matters is debt to first-year earnings: 34%, or 4.1 months of gross pay at the $59,043 median. At the 2026-27 undergraduate loan rate of 6.52%, the standard decade of repayment is $227 a month with $7,276 of interest on top. Model a different balance in the student loan payoff calculator before you borrow it, and sanity-check the degree in 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 Landscape Architecture among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by University of Georgia at $76,849, against a national field median of $71,657.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; University of Georgia at $76,849 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 44.6% of the 386 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 $76,849 sits 7% above the national field median of $71,657. Its median debt, $16,750, runs below the field median of $20,000, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.