undergradly.

Outcomes

Earnings trajectory

Earnings across the first decade (P25 / median / P75)

Census PSEO, bachelor's degree recipients, graduating cohort 0000 (36,299 graduates). Each point is one published percentile, not an average across fields.

Median earnings · 10yr
$58,562
Cost-adjusted: $56,522
Median debt (completers)
$22,300
Debt/earnings ratio: 0.38
3-yr default rate
0.0%
Borrowers who entered repayment in the published cohort year, not current students

College Scorecard. Earnings are measured ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike — not ten years after graduation.

Ten-year median earnings of $58,562 are unremarkable — neither the reason to come nor the reason to stay away. Outcomes diverge sharply: a quarter of the students measured earn under $38,465 ten years after entry while a quarter clear $89,439. Adjusted for local cost of living, that median is worth closer to $56,522 — the surrounding area is expensive enough to erode part of the headline figure. Completers leave with a median debt of $22,300 — unremarkable for a four-year degree. The debt-to-income ratio is 0.38, around the commonly cited healthy ceiling — manageable, with little margin.

Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights)

Mobility rate
1.5%
Bottom → top quintile
Access Q1
5.1%
% from bottom quintile
Success rate Q1
28.8%
Q1 students reaching Q5

Opportunity Insights, students born 1980–1991 — a track record, not a forecast for today's entering class. The mobility rate is a share of all students (bottom-quintile origin and top-quintile outcome); the success rate is the share of bottom-quintile students alone who reach the top. They answer different questions and the second is always the larger number.

Earnings percentiles by field (Census PSEO)

One row per field and graduating cohort. Rows that share a field are different graduating classes, not repeats.

Field Graduating cohort Years after grad P25 Median P75
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2019 1 $29,417 $38,849 $50,330
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2016 1 $26,964 $41,000 $55,012
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2013 1 $28,925 $40,840 $54,709
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2010 1 $28,454 $37,886 $47,510
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2007 1 $28,636 $40,450 $52,939
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2004 1 $30,070 $40,944 $55,322
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2001 1 $31,590 $49,703 $61,332
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 0000 1 $28,801 $40,536 $53,743
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2016 5 $41,778 $58,413 $76,369
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2013 5 $41,802 $59,282 $77,248
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2010 5 $41,948 $59,529 $78,599
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2007 5 $42,570 $59,848 $75,294

Census PSEO, bachelor's degree recipients — earnings measured 1, 5 and 10 years after graduation, unlike the Scorecard figures above. The all-fields institution total is published separately and is not one of the rows above. A cohort label covers a pooling window of three or five graduating years, which PSEO does not publish per cell.

Independent ROI ranking

Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce ranked this school #670 of 4,419 US colleges by 40-year return on investment — the net present value of attending after costs.

10-year NPV
$139,000
20-year NPV
$534,000
40-year NPV
$1,124,000

Georgetown University CEW, Ranking 4,500 Colleges by ROI (2022)