What Social Sciences, General 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 $44,163 year-one median and the $58,102 year-five median for Social Sciences, General come from federal earnings records pooled across 360 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (4,382 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

From $44,163 in the first year to $58,102 in the fifth, earnings grow 32% ($13,939). 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 gentler than typical.

By Pell status, the year-one medians for Social Sciences, General are $43,904 (received Pell) and $44,504 (did not), $600 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, Social Sciences, General ranks 8 of 10 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $63,401. Its closest sibling is Sociology at $57,111, below this field's $58,102. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Social Sciences, General stands number 121 by five-year earnings and number 101 by first-year earnings, and number 50 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 71 places.

The debt side of the same degree

What does the median Social Sciences, General graduate owe? $19,500, the graduate-weighted median over 55 programs with published debt figures. The ratio that matters is debt to first-year earnings: 44%, or 5.3 months of gross pay at the $44,163 median. At the 2026-27 undergraduate loan rate of 6.52%, the standard decade of repayment is $222 a month with $7,094 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 Social Sciences, General among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Vanderbilt University at $110,484, against a national field median of $58,102.

Treat the top of this table as a research list, not a ranking to enroll by: medians reflect local labor markets and student mix as much as teaching. The honest comparison pairs each program's earnings here with its net price from the net price estimator and its four-year total from the degree cost calculator.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 6.7% of the 6,217 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 $110,484 sits 90% above the national field median of $58,102. 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.