Study Shows Ivy League Grads Have Edge on Starting Pay

Just when all of us are cutting back on everything from groceries to college tuition, we find out our kids really will land better jobs if they graduate from an Ivy League school.

According to The Wall Street Journal, where you go to school can make a significant difference in your starting pay. And that difference continues into your mid-career years.

PayScale Inc., an online provider of global compensation data, studied 1.2 million graduates with bachelor's degrees for a year. All the subjects had at least 10 years' work experience, with a median of 15.5 years earning.

The company surveyed graduates of more than 300 schools in the United States, from state universities to Ivy League colleges. The company excluded graduates with master's and other advanced degrees such as M.D.s and J.D.s. The results suggested that the specific college major has little correlation with what you earn.

They also revealed that the median beginning salary for a graduate of an Ivy is 32 percent higher than that of a graduate of a liberal arts college. Ten years after graduation, the gap is 34 percent.

The Journal suggests that one reason why Ivy League grads pass their non-Ivy peers is that the former often pick roles in which they manage or provide advice. David Wise, of the Philadelphia-based Hay Group, hypothesizes that graduates of public colleges are often more interested in support roles and in their individual contributions.

It's also common knowledge that more Ivy Leaguers accept jobs in finance than is common for graduates of other colleges. They also command premium salaries for the same work that their non-Ivy peers perform.

According to the survey, graduates of Dartmouth College earn the highest median salary: $134,000 a year just out of school. Taking into consideration all the Ivy grads studied, those from Columbia bring home the lowest midcareer compensation: a median annual salary of $107,000. This contrasts with the highest-paid liberal arts graduates - from Bucknell University - at $110,000.

The research project also examined how much salaries increased over time. Graduates with liberal-arts degrees experienced total compensation growth of 95 percent at around 10 years, from about $46,000 to nearly $90,000. Those who made it through what the 2008 Princeton Review labeled "party schools" followed a similar path. Their incomes increased 85 percent, from $45,715 to $84,685.

Who got paid the least? While engineering graduates earned the highest starting salaries of those in the study, their compensation grew only 76 percent by mid-career, from $59,058 to $103,842.

And although parents have been telling their kids for years to pick a practical major, those graduating with degrees in subjects such as political science or philosophy aren't exactly destitute. It all depends on the career path the grad chooses. For example, history majors who morph into business consultants earn an average compensation of $104,000 a year. Interestingly, their peers who majored in a business subject such as economics bring home an average of just $98,000 by career midpoint.

For English majors who made it through Harvard, the median starting salary is $44,500 a year. If your diploma came from Ohio State, by contrast, you can expect $35,000. After 10 years, the gap widens even more. The Harvard grad who majored in English will earn 111 percent more than his Ohio State counterpart.