Education Atlas

College Scorecard · cost, debt & earnings

Oklahoma State University-Main Campus

Stillwater, OK · Public · Bachelor-granting · 21,773 undergrads · 75% admitted

Do students finish?
68% complete

Most students who start here finish.

What does it cost?
$28,290/yr net

Average annual price after grants & scholarships. ~$113,160 over four years if you finish on time.

What former students go on to earn

The middle 50% of students who received federal aid, measured 10 years after they entered (an earlier entering class — not a guarantee, and not limited to those who graduated). Earnings vary enormously by field of study.

$57,413 median, 10 yrs after entry
25th pct $37,402 median $57,413 75th pct $84,788

78% earn more than a typical high-school graduate (the dashed line above, $28,000 — a fixed, somewhat dated federal benchmark) ten years on.

Your major matters more than your school

The school-wide figure above blends every major together — but pay varies enormously by program. Pick a degree level (and search your major) to compare like-for-like.

Read these on their own terms. Program pay is measured 1 year after completing the program (early career, graduates only) — not the same as the school-wide number above, which is 10 years after a student first enrolled. Don't compare a program figure to the school figure; use the programs to compare majors to each other.

52 Bachelor's programs · $19,754 to $72,532 (1 yr out)

MajorPay · 1yr outMedian debt
Fire Protection.Bachelor's $72,532 $26,000
Chemical Engineering.Bachelor's $72,362 $24,500
Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering.Bachelor's $71,716 $20,574
Construction Engineering Technology/Technician.Bachelor's $64,858 $24,525
Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space Engineering.Bachelor's $63,660 $19,500
Civil Engineering.Bachelor's $63,117 $21,500
Mechanical Engineering.Bachelor's $63,076 $20,637
Industrial Engineering.Bachelor's $60,837 $26,000
Agricultural Engineering.Bachelor's $59,850 $19,875
Electrical/Electronic Engineering Technologies/Technicians.Bachelor's $58,666 $25,314
Computer Engineering.Bachelor's $57,997 $22,125
Mechanical Engineering Related Technologies/Technicians.Bachelor's $56,655 $22,409
Computer and Information Sciences, General.Bachelor's $54,316 $23,097
Accounting and Related Services.Bachelor's $53,665 $20,734
Finance and Financial Management Services.Bachelor's $51,747 $21,277
Architecture.Bachelor's $51,285
Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Subject Areas.Bachelor's $44,613 $20,500
Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations.Bachelor's $43,981 $20,500
Agricultural Business and Management.Bachelor's $43,523 $17,375
Romance Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.Bachelor's $43,481
Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences.Bachelor's $42,229 $22,750
Mathematics.Bachelor's $41,990 $22,400
Business Administration, Management and Operations.Bachelor's $41,977 $20,250
Marketing.Bachelor's $41,568 $21,000
Hospitality Administration/Management.Bachelor's $41,191 $21,122
Air Transportation.Bachelor's $41,105 $18,625
Housing and Human Environments.Bachelor's $40,697 $22,801
Business/Managerial Economics.Bachelor's $39,285 $16,282
International Business.Bachelor's $39,184 $22,650
Agricultural Public Services.Bachelor's $38,268 $15,000
Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods.Bachelor's $38,253 $24,000
Human Development, Family Studies, and Related Services.Bachelor's $35,429 $21,515
Sociology.Bachelor's $34,360 $22,173
Journalism.Bachelor's $33,432 $21,157
Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication.Bachelor's $32,364 $21,250
Natural Resources Conservation and Research.Bachelor's $32,355
Animal Sciences.Bachelor's $32,233 $18,750
Fine and Studio Arts.Bachelor's $32,029 $21,111
Biology, General.Bachelor's $31,787 $20,595
Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities.Bachelor's $31,269 $23,245
Public Health.Bachelor's $31,015 $19,700
Microbiological Sciences and Immunology.Bachelor's $30,719 $18,500
Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies.Bachelor's $30,592 $18,131
English Language and Literature, General.Bachelor's $30,238 $21,290
Ecology, Evolution, Systematics, and Population Biology.Bachelor's $29,952 $21,410
History.Bachelor's $29,415 $22,250
Psychology, General.Bachelor's $29,274 $19,683
Foods, Nutrition, and Related Services.Bachelor's $29,088 $18,500
Political Science and Government.Bachelor's $28,343 $19,500
Zoology/Animal Biology.Bachelor's $23,264 $20,500
Communication Disorders Sciences and Services.Bachelor's $23,069 $18,259
Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology.Bachelor's $19,754 $18,716

The Dept. of Education omits programs with too few graduates (to protect privacy), so not every major appears. Pay is a median for federally-aided graduates. Full program detail on the official Scorecard.

Typical federal loan debt
$15,500
27% of one year's typical earnings here

This counts federal student loans only — not private loans, Parent PLUS loans, or family savings, so the true cost of borrowing is usually higher. And because students who drop out borrow less, a school where many students don't finish can show a deceptively low debt figure — read it next to the completion rate above.

What these numbers are — and are not

Every figure here is an institution-wide median from the U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard. It is not a prediction of what you would earn or owe — a computer-science and a fine-arts graduate of the same school can earn wildly different amounts, and your field of study matters more than your school. It is not a figure for any one program, not proof the school caused the outcome (selective schools admit students who would earn more anyway), and not a "best college" ranking. Earnings and debt cover federally-aided students.

→ The number that actually answers "worth it" is earnings by major — see the by-major breakdown above (68 programs at this school).

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text · JSON. Source: U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard (2026-06-10 release). · school website