What Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies Graduates Earn

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

Start with the shape of the table: Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies pays $38,729 at the first measured horizon and $57,749 at the last, and those two medians rest on 6,664 and 8,233 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 $38,729 in the first year to $57,749 in the fifth, earnings grow 49% ($19,020). 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.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies are $34,991 (received Pell) and $44,427 (did not), $9,436 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, Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies ranks 1 of 3 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $51,613. Its closest sibling is English Language and Literature, General at $51,613, below this field's $57,749. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies stands number 126 by five-year earnings and number 146 by first-year earnings, and number 100 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 26 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $20,919 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies, pooled from 77 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $38,729 that balance is 54% of a year's gross pay, roughly 6.5 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $238 a month and $7,610 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 Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies is $57,749 nationally, yet the strongest programs below run far ahead of it. The ranking keeps a 30-graduate floor under every entry, and University of California-Berkeley heads the list at $86,050.

A median is a middle graduate, not a promise: half of University of California-Berkeley's counted graduates earn less than $86,050. 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 4.7% of the 8,233 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 $86,050 sits 49% above the national field median of $57,749. Its median debt, $12,136, runs below the field median of $20,919, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.