Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) graduates rank 7th in the nation for highest starting median salary, according to a recent report by PayScale Inc. This marks the fourth straight year that Payscale has ranked WPI highly for the employment and salary opportunities of its alumni.
The "2011-2012 PayScale College Salary Report" ranks degrees and universities by post-graduation salary potential, providing 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 $61,200.
"WPI's project-focused approach to education really prepares our students well for success in the workforce," said Jeannette Doyle, director of WPI's Career Development Center. "From their first day of classes to the time they graduate, WPI students are actively learning to work in teams and to apply their knowledge and skills to helping solve big and important problems. We often hear from corporate recruiters that our interns and graduates are noticeably able to hit the ground running in ways that distinguish them from their counterparts from other universities."
PayScale's report analyzes the company's database of over 29 million unique compensation profiles and pulls together more than 2,500 data points including salary data for 120 bachelor's degree majors and from 1,004 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.
The salary ranking follows news that WPI also ranked among the top 20 among colleges and universities nationwide that offer the highest return on investment (ROI), according a study by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and PayScale which made headlines this past spring. According to their data, WPI graduates can expect a net ROI of $1,535,000 over a 30-year period. The top 20 list included MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, and Stanford, among others. In the ranking, ROI was determined by comparing the cost of attending a school with how much its graduates earn.
