Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is 7th in the nation among engineering schools for highest starting median salary, and 9th in the nation for highest mid-career median pay among engineering schools, according to a report by PayScale Inc. that recognizes the top schools that produce the best-paid graduates. Among all colleges and universities in the nation, WPI ranks in the top 10 for highest starting median salary, and in the top 20 for highest mid-career median pay.
PayScale's 2010 College Salary Report highlights that even during the economic volatility of the last two years, engineering schools like WPI continue to hold their value. The report also provides a critical perspective on the relationship between college selection and both starting and mid-career salaries. Median starting salaries among WPI graduates with up to five years of work experience averaged $60,900. For graduates with 10 to 20 years of experience, the mid-career median was $104,000.
"A WPI education is among the most marketable in the nation, one that produces a valuable return on investment," said Jeannette Doyle, director of WPI's Career Development Center. "Industry recognizes the value of a WPI education, and businesses actively recruit current students and alumni alike."
PayScale's report pulls together more than 2,500 data points including salary data for 125 bachelor's degree majors and from 999 U.S. based undergraduate colleges and universities. The full report can be found here. In calculating the rankings, PayScale considered fields of study as a factor, in addition to the actual colleges and their locations; the survey results show that majors are just as important in determining how much a graduate's starting salary will be.
- Read the July 29, 2010, (Worcester) Telegram & Gazette's coverage of WPI's ranking here.
The salary ranking comes on top of news last month that WPI is ranked 15th in the nation among colleges and universities that offer the highest return on investment (ROI), according to PayScale. The top 20 list included MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, and Stanford, among others. The ROI ranking is intended to help students and parents evaluate the "payback" value of a student's undergraduate degree. In the ranking, ROI was determined by comparing the cost of attending a school with how much its graduates earn. The report notes that WPI's 30-year ROI is $1.2 million.
The 2010 salary report and ROI rankings are the most recent of many accolades given to WPI. U.S. News & World Report’s College Issue recognized WPI for being a best value, for offering an innovative educational curriculum, and for its Global Projects Program, through which thousands of students have traveled to all corners of the globe to develop solutions to important real-world problems. In addition, BusinessWeek ranked WPI's part-time MBA program number 1 in the nation, and The Princeton Review ranked the university 20th out of 371 schools for being home to some of the "happiest students" in the nation.
