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Top Paying Majors and Industries With Earning Potential

For a students, deciding what college to go to and what to major in can be a very difficult decision.  Add to the decision the rising cost of tuition, a job market that they can only hope will improve by the time they graduate and the cost of student loans. The Forbes magazine recently published a list of The 15 Most Valuable College Majors and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) recently came out with their Salary Survey including a listing of top paying industries for new graduates.  One can peruse the list of majors to assess if there is an interest in any of the majors.  However, doing a little research using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in advance to explore the demand and earnings potential of other majors you are interested in can help followed by exploring an opportunity within one of the top paying industries. The list of some of the top paying majors with earning potential and top paying industries include…

Top Majors
 Median Salary
Job Growth
  Top Paying Industries
Salary
Biomedical engineering
$ 53,800 62%   Utilities $64,400
Biochemistry $ 79,390 31%
  Information $54,392
Computer science $100,660 19%
  Manufacturing $53,006
Software engineering $ 87,800 30%
  Management $51,874
Environmental engineering $ 88,600 22%
  Finance / Insurance $51,110
Civil engineering $ 90,200 19%
   Source:NACE, April 2012
 
Petroleum engineering $155,000 17%
     
Applied mathematics /statistics $ 72,830 14%
     
Mathematics 
$ 99,380 16%
     
Physics $105,430 14%
     
Source: Forbes Magazine, May 2012