What Nutrition Sciences Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Nutrition Sciences pays $36,414 at the first measured horizon and $63,372 at the last, and those two medians rest on 2,118 and 2,998 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 $36,414 in the first year to $63,372 in the fifth, earnings grow 74% ($26,958). 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 steeper than typical.

The Pell split adds a second lens on the $36,414 year-one median: graduates who received Pell Grants earn a median of $37,787, and graduates who did not earn $38,643, a gap of $856. 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, Nutrition Sciences ranks 4 of 8 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $62,349. Its closest sibling is International/Globalization Studies at $64,111, above this field's $63,372. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Nutrition Sciences stands number 102 by five-year earnings and number 163 by first-year earnings, and number 32 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 70 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Across the 51 programs that report debt for Nutrition Sciences, the median graduate owes $19,250. Set beside the $36,414 year-one median, the debt is 53% of first-year gross earnings, about 6.3 months of pay before tax. Repaid on the standard 10-year schedule at 6.52%, it costs $219 monthly and $7,003 in interest. The student loan payoff calculator replays that schedule with your numbers, and the college ROI calculator weighs the full cost against the earnings table above.

Where graduates of this field earn the most

One field, many markets: the five-year median for Nutrition Sciences is $63,372 nationally, yet the strongest programs below run far ahead of it. The ranking keeps a 30-graduate floor under every entry, and University of Georgia heads the list at $98,066.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; University of Georgia at $98,066 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 9.9% of the 2,998 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 $98,066 sits 55% above the national field median of $63,372. Its median debt, $13,250, runs below the field median of $19,250, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.