Various factors contribute to the causes of salary disparities. Among them, in the United States, having a bachelor's degree from a four-year university was found to create an average salary gap of about twice as much. However, recent research results indicate that a diploma alone is not everything. Even among people with the same bachelor's degree in the same major, there is a salary gap of up to approximately 200 million won depending on which school they graduated from.
According to a report released in May by the Pew Research Center, a bipartisan think tank based in Washington D.C., the average annual income last year for young American men (aged 25-34) who graduated from a four-year university was $77,000. In contrast, young men of the same age group who only graduated from high school earned $45,000. During the same period, young women with a bachelor's degree earned $65,000, while women without a degree earned $36,000. This means that the average salary gap among young Americans due to having a college diploma reached about $30,000 (40 million won).
However, the salary gap among those holding the same bachelor's degree was even more severe. On the 4th, PayScale, a salary data provider, compiled the education and career data of over 3 million American college graduates and calculated the median salary of graduates with more than 10 years of experience. The survey found that even among bachelor's degree holders in the same major, salaries varied by up to $130,000 (about 170 million won) depending on the alma mater.
Among the many universities in the United States, which school boasted the highest graduate salary? Although numerous prestigious universities, including the Ivy League, competed, the top spot was claimed by none other than MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The median salary of MIT alumni with more than 10 years of experience was $196,900 (about 250 million won), ranking first among approximately 1,500 universities surveyed. Princeton University, the pride of the Ivy League, followed closely with $194,100. The school with the lowest graduate salary was Great Lakes Christian College, a private school, at $65,200.
The Ivy League, a symbol of prestigious private universities in the U.S., narrowly lost the top spot to MIT but demonstrated its strength with four universities?Princeton, Dartmouth, UPenn, and Harvard?ranking within the top 10. Besides the Ivy League, universities renowned for their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs, such as the U.S. Naval Academy (3rd) and Harvey Mudd College (4th), also secured high rankings. MIT’s soul rival, Caltech (California Institute of Technology), ranked 13th.
PayScale explained, "Majors influence job income as much as the alma mater," adding, "especially STEM majors generally earn more than students who studied humanities." Meanwhile, petroleum engineering was identified as the highest-paying major overall, with graduates earning an average salary of $212,000 in the industry after more than 10 years of work experience.
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