Grads from These Illinois Colleges are Making the Most Money

With dozens of colleges in Illinois, how do students know which is the best to pick for them if they want to maximize their salaries over the course of their careers? Students and their families have to factor in other circumstances, such as budgets, housing, social opportunities and other things too, of course, but a new list from PayScale can offer some insight into which colleges are best in Illinois for earning as much money as possible.

Students who earned just a bachelor’s degree (and did not go on to receive a graduate degree) earned the most by the middle of their career if they went to the State University of New York–Maritime College, whose graduates made a mid-career median pay of $134,000, after starting with a median pay of $65,200 in their early careers. Also high on the list are the likely suspects: Harvard University ($126,000 at mid-career), Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($124,000), Stanford ($123,000) and Princeton ($122,000), among others.

The Illinois college whose bachelor’s degree-only students who made the most in the middle of the careers came in at number 38 in the national list.

Check out this list from PayScale of Illinois colleges whose graduates had the highest mid-career medium incomes, plus what those same graduates’ early-career earnings were, and the schools’ national rankings.

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