What Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management 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 Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management: $34,499, then $45,348, then $50,551. Each median is graduate-weighted, built from 37 programs at year one and 37 at year five, and the unweighted program median sits alongside so a reader can see how much the weighting itself is doing.

From $34,499 in the first year to $50,551 in the fifth, earnings grow 47% ($16,052). 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 Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management are $33,203 (received Pell) and $32,832 (did not), $371 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, Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management ranks 4 of 4 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $57,893. Its closest sibling is Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy at $57,893, above this field's $50,551. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management stands number 160 by five-year earnings and number 169 by first-year earnings, and number 93 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 67 places.

The debt side of the same degree

The median graduate in this field leaves school owing $20,719 in federal loans, the graduate-weighted median across the 38 programs reporting debt. That is 60% of the first-year median earnings, or about 7.2 months of gross pay at $34,499 a year. On the standard 10-year plan at the 2026-27 undergraduate rate of 6.52%, the payment is $235 a month and interest adds $7,538 over the life of the loan. Price your own borrowing with the student loan payoff calculator, and test the whole degree in the college ROI calculator or 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 Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Utah State University at $58,113, against a national field median of $50,551.

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 14.3% of the 1,571 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 $58,113 sits 15% above the national field median of $50,551. Its graduates' debt figure is not published, one of the gaps this page leaves visible rather than filling.