What Real Estate Graduates Earn
How much do Real Estate bachelor's graduates earn?
The median Real Estate bachelor's graduate starts at $63,536 and reaches $86,150 by year five in the federal Scorecard data (25 programs reporting at that horizon). Median debt at graduation: $19,500.
What Real Estate actually returns, in federal numbers: median earnings at three horizons for 851 counted graduates, and the median debt those graduates carried out.
Updated November 5, 2026
Median earnings at 1, 4, and 5 years (College Scorecard)
The three rows below are the whole earnings story Scorecard can tell about Real Estate: $63,536, then $80,900, then $86,150. Each median is graduate-weighted, built from 35 programs at year one and 25 at year five, and the unweighted program median sits alongside so a reader can see how much the weighting itself is doing.
| Horizon | Median earnings (graduate-weighted) | Median program (unweighted) | Graduates counted | Share earning above the high-school threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year after graduation | $63,536 | $61,645 | 1,388 | 44.5% |
| 4 years after graduation | $80,900 | $82,246 | 900 | n/p |
| 5 years after graduation | $86,150 | $89,083 | 851 | 41.1% |
Five years out, the median graduate earns $86,150, which is $22,614 more than the year-one median of $63,536 (36% growth). Set against the median field overall ($45,010 at year one, $65,763 at year five), this field starts above the pack and ends above it.
By Pell status, the year-one medians for Real Estate are $67,148 (received Pell) and $67,051 (did not), $97 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, Real Estate ranks 6 of 19 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $78,466. Its closest sibling is Business/Managerial Economics at $86,694, above this field's $86,150. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.
Ranked across all 182 published fields, Real Estate stands number 39 by five-year earnings and number 45 by first-year earnings, and number 39 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 0 places.
The debt side of the same degree
Across the 23 programs that report debt for Real Estate, the median graduate owes $19,500. Set beside the $63,536 year-one median, the debt is 31% of first-year gross earnings, about 3.7 months of pay before tax. Repaid on the standard 10-year schedule at 6.52%, it costs $222 monthly and $7,094 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
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 Real Estate among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison at $139,874, against a national field median of $86,150.
| Institution | Median earnings, 5 years | Median earnings, 1 year | Median debt | Graduates counted (5yr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Wisconsin-Madison | $139,874 | $75,375 | $15,000 | 76 |
| University of Georgia | $99,705 | $67,501 | $14,988 | 51 |
| University of San Diego | $93,920 | $65,952 | $19,500 | 34 |
| University of Northern Iowa | $86,150 | $64,646 | $20,500 | 52 |
| Florida State University | $85,259 | $59,785 | $11,751 | 120 |
A median is a middle graduate, not a promise: half of University of Wisconsin-Madison's counted graduates earn less than $139,874. Weigh any program here against its own price using the net price estimator and the degree cost calculator.
Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 39.1% of the 851 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 $139,874 sits 62% above the national field median of $86,150. Its median debt, $15,000, runs below the field median of $19,500, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Real Estate graduates earn?
The national median is $63,536 one year after graduation and $86,150 five years after, across the 35 bachelor's programs reporting 1-year earnings to College Scorecard (October 2026 release), weighted by graduates counted.
How much debt do Real Estate graduates carry?
The median cumulative federal loan debt at graduation is $19,500. On a standard 10-year plan at 6.52% that is $222 a month and $7,094 of interest in total.
How were the Real Estate national figures computed?
Scorecard publishes one median per program; this page takes the median of those program medians weighted by each program's graduates counted (1,388 people at year one), and prints the unweighted median program beside it. The field cleared a publication bar of at least 10 programs reporting at every horizon.
Is a degree in Real Estate worth it?
The inputs are on this page: $86,150 median earnings at year five against $19,500 median debt. The verdict depends on your actual cost, so run your numbers through the college ROI calculator and the college major ROI calculator.