What Research and Experimental Psychology Graduates Earn

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

The three rows below are the whole earnings story Scorecard can tell about Research and Experimental Psychology: $37,442, then $57,378, then $61,485. Each median is graduate-weighted, built from 114 programs at year one and 76 at year five, and the unweighted program median sits alongside so a reader can see how much the weighting itself is doing.

Earnings in this field climb $24,043 between the first and fifth year, a 64% rise that trails 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 $37,442 year-one median: graduates who received Pell Grants earn a median of $36,204, and graduates who did not earn $38,740, a gap of $2,536. 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, Research and Experimental Psychology ranks 1 of 3 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $55,077. Its closest sibling is Clinical, Counseling and Applied Psychology at $55,077, below this field's $61,485. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Research and Experimental Psychology stands number 109 by five-year earnings and number 156 by first-year earnings, and number 17 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 92 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $18,490 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Research and Experimental Psychology, pooled from 125 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $37,442 that balance is 49% of a year's gross pay, roughly 5.9 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $210 a month and $6,727 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

One field, many markets: the five-year median for Research and Experimental Psychology is $61,485 nationally, yet the strongest programs below run far ahead of it. The ranking keeps a 30-graduate floor under every entry, and Columbia University in the City of New York heads the list at $91,219.

A program median describes that program's own graduates in that program's own labor market; Columbia University in the City of New York at $91,219 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 5.5% of the 7,543 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 $91,219 sits 48% above the national field median of $61,485. Its median debt, $31,181, runs above the field median of $18,490, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.