Engineering majors yield the highest starting salaries for students nationally according to a survey released last week.
Of the top ten majors with the highest starting salaries, eight were in the engineering field.
The College of Engineering at University of Wisconsin, which participated in the Winter 2010 survey released March 11 by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, offers six of them.
The survey looks at starting salaries from jobs offered to undergraduates whether they have graduated or not.
According to the survey, the overall national average for undergraduate salaries from all academic disciplines is $48,351.
An average job offer for an undergraduate in the UW College of Engineering in 2008-09, according to Engineering Career Services Director John Archambault, had a salary of $56,823.
Petroleum Engineering, which is not offered at UW, is the major with the highest salary at $86,220, according to the survey.
Although Archambault said UW does not offer Petroleum Engineering, there is a similar path for students involved in chemical engineering.
Archambault attributed high starting salaries to the challenging curriculum of a typical engineering student and the high demand for engineers compared with the amount of students with the major.
Approximately 80 percent of students in the college participate in a co-op or internship, Archambault said, which attributes to a high salary rate.
In a statement regarding the survey results, NACE Executive Director Marilyn Mackes said a technical degree gives a student an edge in today’s job market.
NACE is a non-profit association that recruits college graduates and college employment services. The surveys, according to Andrea Koncz, NACE spokesperson, are to find out what is going on in the college job market scene.
Both public and private universities participated in the survey. The College of Engineering was the only school in UW to participate, according to Koncz.
Approximately 70 majors were considered from all academic disciplines.
Koncz said although job offers are counted in the survey, whether the student actually accepts the job cannot be determined, and the job offers do not even have to necessarily pertain to a student’s major.
