California university diploma ranked among the most lucrative degrees in US

Graduates from one affordable California university are getting some of the best bang for their diploma buck in the country.

New analysis from higher education research firm the HEA Group breaks down the most lucrative undergraduate degrees in the U.S. — and a public institution in the Golden State managed to crash its way onto an elite list of the top 10 earners nationwide.

The median income for a Computer Engineering major at the University of California, Los Angeles is $228,705, making it the sixth-most lucrative degree in the country, according to the analysis.

It’s a good return on investment for those who attend the school, which costs around $45,500 per academic year for California residents, and $87,770 for nonresidents, including housing, transportation, food, and books.

The analysis looked at the salaries of students who received federal financial aid and graduated during
the 2017/18 and 2018/19 periods.

And UCLA isn’t the only California school near the top of the pile, where degree-holders are making over $200k after just four years. At the relatively small Pomona College in Claremont, Computer Science majors have an outsized advantage — earning a median salary of $217,051.

Pomona, which has an acceptance rate of just 7%, costs students upwards of $90,000 per academic year to attend.

Mathematics graduates from Duke University in Durham, N.C. topped the chart, with a median salary of $297,029.

Bay Area schools were blocked from the top 10, which was largely crowded with east coast big names — but hovered close to the top all the same. Computer Science graduates from Stanford University earned a median income of $214,907, while graduates with the same degree from the University of California, Berkeley earned $204,379.

Outside of technology, students from nursing programs at several California schools, including California State University, East Bay; San Francisco State University; and Samuel Merritt University, are producing graduates that earn around $150,000 annually.

This places in them in the top 100 out of the nearly 25,000 bachelor’s programs analyzed by the HEA Group.

Meanwhile, with tuitions at some of the nation’s top schools ballooning past $100,000, an increasing number of students appear to be feeling as if college isn’t worth the expense.

In a 2024 survey of 1,000 enrolled undergrad and graduate students, just 33% of students said college delivers for the cost — while 29% said it does not.

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