Environmental Science: 2-Year $33K vs 4-Year $35K
Associate Degree
2 years · 236 schools
- Time to degree 2 years
- Year-1 earnings $32,567
- Year-4 earnings $41,556
- Median debt at grad $10,724
- Annual completions 1,025
- % women 52.0%
Bachelor's Degree
4 years · 829 schools
- Time to degree 4 years
- Year-1 earnings $34,624
- Year-4 earnings $55,777
- Median debt at grad $21,322
- Annual completions 17,718
- % women 63.1%
When does the Bachelor's pay off?
Computed: Scorecard yr1–yr4 earnings, then 2.0% real growth, minus median debt at graduation. Excludes loan interest and opportunity cost during enrollment.
How we computed this comparison
Year-1 through year-4 earnings come from College Scorecard field-level medians, aggregated across producing institutions for the listed credential level. Median debt at graduation comes from Scorecard field-level data when available, otherwise the institution-level fallback noted in the data block. Completion volume and demographic split come from IPEDS completions_by_program (most recent year, first-major only). The break-even chart projects cumulative net earnings: each path is treated as zero income while the student is enrolled, then earns the Scorecard year-1 → year-4 trajectory, then 2.0% real annual wage growth past year 4. The starting median debt is subtracted at graduation. The chart does NOT model loan interest, opportunity cost of forgone earnings during enrollment beyond zeroing them, regional cost-of-living variance, or graduation rate risk.
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