undergradly.

Outcomes

Earnings trajectory

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

Census PSEO, bachelor's degree recipients, graduating cohort 0000 (15,473 graduates). Each point is one published percentile, not an average across fields.

Median earnings · 10yr
$48,386
Cost-adjusted: $49,852
Median debt (completers)
$15,000
Debt/earnings ratio: 0.31
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.

Median earnings settle at $48,386 ten years after entry, close to the typical four-year result. The quartile range runs $29,365 to $65,061, typical for an undergraduate institution. On a cost-of-living-adjusted basis the median is worth $49,852, a meaningful premium over the nominal number. Completers leave with a median debt of $15,000 — unremarkable for a four-year degree. The debt-to-income ratio of 0.31 is comfortable — debt is a small fraction of what graduates earn.

Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights)

Mobility rate
8.1%
Bottom → top quintile
Access Q1
31.9%
% from bottom quintile
Success rate Q1
25.4%
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 $21,726 $28,103 $38,202
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2016 1 $22,171 $31,559 $40,217
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2013 1 $23,078 $32,130 $42,555
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 0000 1 $23,038 $31,252 $41,334
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2016 5 $32,455 $43,047 $60,696
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2013 5 $41,326 $55,746 $67,343
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2010 5 $28,777 $41,244 $57,372
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 0000 5 $35,634 $51,562 $66,682
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2010 10 $39,998 $49,035 $66,382
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 2007 10 $51,929 $66,779 $80,415
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs (09) 0000 10 $46,571 $61,498 $73,872
Communication and Media Studies (09.01) 2019 1 $21,726 $28,103 $38,202

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 #952 of 4,419 US colleges by 40-year return on investment — the net present value of attending after costs.

10-year NPV
$163,000
20-year NPV
$515,000
40-year NPV
$1,041,000

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