Education Atlas

College Scorecard · cost, debt & earnings

University of Washington-Tacoma Campus

Tacoma, WA · Public · Bachelor-granting · 4,185 undergrads · 83% admitted

Do students finish?
63% complete

Most students who start here finish.

What does it cost?
$25,346/yr net

Average annual price after grants & scholarships. ~$101,384 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.

$78,466 median, 10 yrs after entry
25th pct $50,171 median $78,466 75th pct $115,782

83% 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.

31 Bachelor's programs · $24,917 to $137,584 (1 yr out)

MajorPay · 1yr outMedian debt
Computer Engineering.Bachelor's $137,584 $15,422
Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing.Bachelor's $75,688 $12,500
Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering.Bachelor's $73,856 $14,000
Computer and Information Sciences, General.Bachelor's $67,196 $15,127
Mechanical Engineering.Bachelor's $66,636 $14,448
Civil Engineering.Bachelor's $65,357 $15,000
Finance and Financial Management Services.Bachelor's $59,174 $13,856
Accounting and Related Services.Bachelor's $52,825 $14,828
Economics.Bachelor's $49,591 $14,488
Marketing.Bachelor's $48,321 $15,000
Education, General.Bachelor's $47,896 $14,159
Business Administration, Management and Operations.Bachelor's $44,694 $13,654
Urban Studies/Affairs.Bachelor's $44,241 $15,757
Criminal Justice and Corrections.Bachelor's $42,576 $11,628
Political Science and Government.Bachelor's $38,001 $13,290
Communication and Media Studies.Bachelor's $37,823 $15,000
Non-Professional Legal Studies.Bachelor's $37,114 $14,512
Area Studies.Bachelor's $36,522 $14,845
Public Health.Bachelor's $36,267 $15,500
Social Work.Bachelor's $35,399 $13,400
Biology, General.Bachelor's $32,362 $13,809
Social Sciences, Other.Bachelor's $31,911 $11,734
Psychology, General.Bachelor's $30,890 $14,342
Natural Resources Conservation and Research.Bachelor's $30,403 $15,932
Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies.Bachelor's $29,213 $12,551
History.Bachelor's $28,876 $15,000
Romance Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.Bachelor's $27,937 $14,019
International/Globalization Studies.Bachelor's $27,565 $17,256
Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities.Bachelor's $27,075 $15,071
Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies, General.Bachelor's $26,604 $14,691
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies.Bachelor's $24,917 $14,000

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
$12,375
16% 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 (41 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