{"chart":{"slug":"student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major","title":"How big is student debt compared with pay, by major?","takeaway":"Graduates in the 20 most common bachelor's majors borrow similar amounts in federal student loans at the typical college, but their pay differs widely. For teacher education graduates, that debt equaled 51% of a year's earnings four years after graduating; for computer science graduates, 21%. Debt is the median of colleges' median federal loan debt for graduates who borrowed (private and parent loans not counted). Earnings cover only graduates who received federal aid and were working.","topic":"College","chart_type":"bar","ranking":true,"x_label":"Major (bachelor's degree)","y_label":"Typical federal loan debt as a percent of a year's earnings","unit":"percent","points_count":20,"source":{"name":"U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard","url":"https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work)","url":"https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright"},"data_as_of":"2023-12-31","updated_at":"2026-11-04T13:22:29.702Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major/embed","credit":"U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major)","credit_html":"U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Teacher education","value":51.2},{"label":"Psychology","value":46.1},{"label":"English","value":45.3},{"label":"Social work","value":44.9},{"label":"Kinesiology and physical education","value":44.4},{"label":"Criminal justice","value":44.3},{"label":"Liberal arts and general studies","value":43.6},{"label":"Sociology","value":43.0},{"label":"Biology","value":40.8},{"label":"Communication and media studies","value":40.8},{"label":"Business administration and management","value":34.2},{"label":"Political science","value":34.0},{"label":"Marketing","value":32.5},{"label":"Accounting","value":30.2},{"label":"Finance","value":26.0},{"label":"Nursing","value":25.8},{"label":"Economics","value":25.1},{"label":"Mechanical engineering","value":24.9},{"label":"Computer and information sciences","value":24.6},{"label":"Computer science","value":20.6}],"annotations":[]},"docs":"https://chart.ly/developers","terms":"Free to use with credit: wherever you show or quote a chart's data, name Chartly with a link to that chart's url (each chart's credit line does both) and credit its source as its license asks.","credit":"U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/student-debt-vs-earnings-by-major)"}