Best Colleges for Engineering: Ranked by Graduate Salary, Not Prestige
We rank by what graduates actually earn — not by reputation surveys.
Top Schools for Engineering — Ranked by Graduate Salary
These schools produce the highest-earning Engineering graduates, based on federal earnings data. We rank by salary outcomes, not prestige.
| # | School | Engineering Salary | Acceptance Rate | Degrees/Year | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Caltech Pasadena, CA |
$128,339 | 3.1% | 84 | Reach |
| 2 | MIT Cambridge, MA |
$128,339 | 4.7% | 403 | Reach |
| 3 | Stanford University Stanford, CA |
$122,760 | 3.9% | 258 | Reach |
| 4 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA |
$114,840 | 11.4% | 332 | Reach |
| 5 | UC Berkeley Berkeley, CA |
$112,752 | 11.7% | 1,128 | Reach |
| 6 | Brown University Providence, RI |
$111,600 | 5.2% | 99 | Reach |
| 7 | Columbia University New York, NY |
$111,600 | 4.2% | 308 | Reach |
| 8 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY |
$111,600 | 8.2% | 514 | Reach |
| 9 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH |
$111,600 | 6.2% | 83 | Reach |
| 10 | Duke University Durham, NC |
$111,600 | 6.8% | 290 | Reach |
| 11 | Harvard University Cambridge, MA |
$111,600 | 3.5% | 85 | Reach |
| 12 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD |
$111,600 | 7.6% | 282 | Reach |
| 13 | New York University (NYU) New York, NY |
$111,600 | 9.4% | 278 | Reach |
| 14 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL |
$111,600 | 7.1% | 319 | Reach |
| 15 | Princeton University Princeton, NJ |
$111,600 | 4.5% | 211 | Reach |
| 16 | UCLA Los Angeles, CA |
$111,600 | 9.0% | 706 | Reach |
| 17 | University of Chicago Chicago, IL |
$111,600 | 4.8% | 38 | Reach |
| 18 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA |
$111,600 | 5.9% | 233 | Reach |
| 19 | Yale University New Haven, CT |
$111,600 | 4.5% | 99 | Reach |
| 20 | Georgia Tech Atlanta, GA |
$106,920 | 16.5% | 1,964 | Match |
| 21 | Tufts University Medford, MA |
$104,400 | 10.1% | 230 | Reach |
| 22 | USC Los Angeles, CA |
$104,400 | 10.0% | 453 | Reach |
| 23 | University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI |
$97,200 | 17.9% | 1,107 | Match |
| 24 | University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC |
$97,200 | 18.7% | 149 | Match |
| 25 | University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA |
$97,200 | 16.9% | 454 | Match |
| 26 | Texas A&M University Austin, TX |
$90,000 | 29.1% | 1,381 | Match |
| 27 | UC Irvine Irvine, CA |
$90,000 | 25.6% | 1,019 | Match |
| 28 | UC San Diego La Jolla, CA |
$90,000 | 24.5% | 935 | Match |
| 29 | UC Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA |
$90,000 | 27.8% | 239 | Match |
| 30 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL |
$90,000 | 24.0% | 1,211 | Match |
Data source: IPEDS, College Scorecard.