Education Atlas

College Scorecard · field of study · all U.S. colleges

Is a Statistics degree worth the debt?

The figures below lead with the Bachelor's, aggregated across 46 colleges (46 of 46 programs report earnings). Other credential levels are in the table further down.

Median pay · 1 yr after
$48,680

Graduates only, early career.$49,962 two years out.

Median federal debt
$19,500

Federal loans only — not private or Parent PLUS.

Debt vs a year's pay
0.39×

39% of a first year's earnings.

Typical debt is well under a single year's early-career pay.

The college you pick moves this a lot

The middle 50% of Bachelor's programs in Statistics report early-career pay between $46,550 and $59,342 — a spread of $12,792 that depends on the program and who attends it, not the major alone.

25th pct $46,550 median $48,680 75th pct $59,342

By degree level

Each level is a separate decision — more schooling usually means more pay and more debt.

LevelPay · 1yrDebtDebt/pay
Bachelor's 46 colleges $48,680 $19,500 0.39×
Master's 18 colleges $85,100 $37,796 0.36×

Where a Bachelor's in this field reports the highest early-career pay

The 15 programs with the highest reported pay one year after completion. This reflects who enrolls and where they live as much as the program itself — it is not a causal quality ranking.

Carnegie Mellon University PA $89,636 $21,000 debt
Cornell University NY $83,338
Harvard University MA $78,193
University of California-Berkeley CA $70,227 $15,400 debt
Purdue University-Main Campus IN $68,741 $19,250 debt
Gustavus Adolphus College MN $66,124
Emory University GA $66,121 $20,983 debt
Williams College MA $65,849
University of Miami FL $65,603
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign IL $63,699 $19,000 debt
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor MI $60,804 $23,150 debt
Northwestern University IL $59,892 $14,234 debt
Brigham Young University UT $57,692 $10,312 debt
University of Virginia-Main Campus VA $57,205 $16,295 debt
University of California-Los Angeles CA $56,134 $15,811 debt

What these numbers are — and are not

Every figure here is a median across college programs in Statistics, from the U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard. It is not a prediction of what you would earn (your college, effort, and local job market vary enormously — see the spread above), not lifetime earnings (it is measured 1–2 years after completion, early career), not proof the major caused the outcome (who enters a field differs by field — selection, not causation), and not a "best majors" ranking: earnings are one dimension of worth, not the whole of it. Teaching and social work pay far less than the fields at the top of this list and matter enormously. Earnings cover federally-aided completers at programs large enough to report.

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text · JSON. Source: U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard — Field of Study (2026-06-10 release). · explore this field on the official Scorecard