What MajorPays is
MajorPays shows what college majors, careers, schools and places pay, using public data from U.S. government agencies. It is free, has no accounts and does not require you to sign in. It is a source of information, not advice: MajorPays does not provide advice. See the Terms of Use.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure comes from a published government dataset or from a calculation MajorPays makes on one. The main sources are the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard and IPEDS), the Census Bureau (American Community Survey, Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes, County Business Patterns and others), the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor (O*NET and foreign labor certification data), the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Internal Revenue Service, HUD, HRSA and the National Science Foundation. Each dataset, its release, its license or terms and what MajorPays uses it for are listed on the Data sources page, and every page names its sources in a note at the bottom. Where a source publishes terms for reuse, we record them with a dated capture when we start using it; some federal sources state no restriction at all, and we say so.
What MajorPays calculates itself
- Bachelor's premium: bachelor's-degree pay divided by high-school pay, minus 1.
- Medians and shares from survey records: state figures by education and major are MajorPays' own estimates from Census Bureau American Community Survey microdata (full-time, year-round workers ages 25 to 64); Census is credited only as the source of the original data.
- Rent as a share of bachelor's pay: twelve months of median rent divided by median bachelor's earnings.
- Jobs per 100 residents and average pay per job: County Business Patterns employment divided by population, and annual payroll divided by employment.
- Cost of attendance: published in-state tuition and fees plus books, room and board and other expenses (on campus when reported). State medians count each college once.
- Price-level adjustment: pay divided by the BEA price level of the state (100 is the U.S. average).
- Wages by area: the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area pages show BLS estimates as published, listed alphabetically; the concentration column is BLS’s location quotient (an occupation’s share of local jobs divided by its share of U.S. jobs).
- Averages over time: job openings, hires and quits are 12-month averages of monthly estimates.
- Selections: which industries, schools or measures appear (for example, the five largest industries for a career) follows stated rules, such as minimum numbers of workers or students.
- Pay-spread (ridgeline) charts on the Compare page: smooth shapes MajorPays fits through the percentiles or income brackets an agency publishes, drawn only between the lowest and highest published points; they are estimates of the shape, not counts of people, and the charts say so. See how to read them.
Rules for showing a number
To avoid showing numbers that are mostly noise, MajorPays applies its own minimums: for example, county, city and ZIP code pages are created only for places with at least 10,000 residents (5,000 for ZIP code areas), and Census survey earnings (counties, cities and ZIP code areas) are shown only when the margin of error is at most 20% of the estimate; College Scorecard, Census PSEO and BLS earnings follow their own agencies' publication and privacy rules (unemployment rates by education level are shown only when their margin of error is at most 2.5 percentage points); shares such as rent burden, commutes, broadband, health insurance, home ownership, poverty, college enrollment, working from home and veterans are shown only when their margin of error is at most 7 percentage points and the group they are measured against is itself reliable; shares of exactly 0% or 100% are not shown for places under 5,000 residents; percentages of enrollment, degrees awarded and age by gender, race or age group are not shown for schools or levels with fewer than 30 students, and groups under 5 degrees are left out; school and program figures need enough graduates in the group; career wage lists need enough applications. Where a source withholds a figure to protect privacy, we show a dash or nothing, never a guess.
What the numbers do not tell you
- Averages and medians describe groups, not any one person. Your pay depends on your school, major, job, employer, location, experience and many other things.
- School earnings come from students who received federal aid and were working and not enrolled at the time measured, so they do not cover every student. They say nothing about how much a school added to its graduates' earnings.
- Survey figures carry sampling error; model-based figures (such as state unemployment and county poverty estimates) are revised.
- Different sources measure different groups and years. We show them side by side and do not average them.
- Areas are described as a whole. A county or ZIP code figure does not describe the people in it.
No rankings
MajorPays does not rank schools, colleges, places or states. Lists start in alphabetical (or numerical) order, and you can sort columns yourself. The Compare schools, places, states, careers and majors pages show up to four of your own choices side by side, in the order you pick, without scoring or highlighting any of them. We avoid words like "best" or "top" for institutions because a rank hides what different people need and is easy to misread.
Compare tools and downloads
The Compare schools, places, states, careers and majors pages show up to four of your own choices side by side, in the order you pick. The last column, Difference, is arithmetic only: with two choices it is the second minus the first; with three or four it is the largest minus the smallest; it is left blank for text rows and when the choices are measured on different bases (for example on-campus and off-campus cost). Each page offers a CSV download of your comparison, built in your browser. The file lists the source of every row, the preparation date and the attribution, and states that the agencies have not endorsed the presentation and that MajorPays does not provide advice. We count how many times each file is downloaded (the file name only). The Downloads page also offers files of our summary tables for schools, counties, states, careers and majors: a plain CSV (header row and data only) and a ZIP that adds a README with the sources, license and attribution text and a guide to every column.
How often the data is updated
Most sources publish once a year. We update when new releases appear, and each page states the year of its data. News items are refreshed automatically from public agency feeds. If you see a figure that is out of date, please tell us.
Corrections and removals
If you find something wrong, out of date, unfairly presented, or that should not appear, please tell us with the page address and what you would like changed. We review requests and correct errors. You can also use the "Report an error" link at the bottom of every page.
Privacy and ads
MajorPays does not collect personal information. It counts visits with a cookie-free counter and shows Google AdSense ads, which can use cookies; see the Privacy Policy. MajorPays does not take payment from, or sell services to, any school, and no school or agency has endorsed it.
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