Fueled by Competition, New Grad Pay Continues to Rise

NACE (the National Association of Colleges and Employers) has released the Summer 2007 issue of its quarterly Salary Survey, which tells us that increasing competition for new college graduates is translating into average starting salaries that continue to climb.  Liberal arts majors as well as those majoring in business and engineering all seem to be profiting from this trend.

Some specific data from the survey, which features both average starting salary and the percent increase(presumably from a year ago) by discipline:

Business

• Accounting - $46,718 (+2.3%)
• Business Admin/Management - $43,701 (+3.9%)
• Economics - $48,483 (no historical data for comparison)
• Finance - $47,239 (no historical data for comparison)
• MIS/Business Data Processing - $47,648 (+4.2%)
• Marketing - $40,161 (+6.1%)
• Computer Science - $53,396 (+4.1%)
• Info Science & Systems - $50,852 (+4.6%)

Engineering

• Chemical Engineering - $59,361 (+5.4%)
• Civil Engineering - $48,509 (+5.4%)
• Computer Engineering - $56,201 (+4.8%)
• Mechanical Engineering - $54,128 (+4.6%)
• Electrical Engineering - $55,292 (+3.2%)

Liberal Arts

• Political Science/Government - $34,590 (+5.9%)
• English - $32,553 (+5.3%)
• Psychology - $31,631 (+4.7%)
• Sociology - $32,033 (3.5%)
• History - $33,768 (+3.3%)