undergradly.
Major · Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Where biology meets code, statistics, and AI

Bioinformatics applies computer science, statistics, and machine learning to genomic, proteomic, and clinical biology data. About 355 students complete this bachelor’s each year across 54 institutions, with a five-year median of $99,538 — among the highest of any biology-adjacent CIP.

Schools offering
54
Annual completions
355
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$100k

About this major

Bioinformatics applies computer science, statistics, and machine learning to biological and biomedical data — DNA and RNA sequencing reads, protein structures, single-cell expression matrices, electronic health records, and mass-spectrometry output. The CIP definition spans algorithms, database management, software design, image processing, and computer programming applied to experimental design and quantitative analysis across biological specializations. Coursework typically pairs a full computer-science core (data structures, algorithms, software engineering, databases) with biology fundamentals (genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry) and a statistics-and-ML track that runs in Python with Biopython, pandas, scikit-learn, and PyTorch, plus R with Bioconductor. Workflow languages like Snakemake or Nextflow, Linux command-line fluency, Git, and AWS or GCP cloud pipelines round out the toolkit students leave with.

The major rewards students who can hold biology and code in their head at the same time — the kind of curiosity that asks why a particular variant tracks with disease across a million-person cohort, or how a protein language model predicts a fold no crystal structure has ever resolved. Comfort with mathematics, willingness to debug pipelines for two days to recover a single result, and patience for ambiguous experimental data all matter more than they would in a pure-CS or pure-biology track. Many programs sit inside biology departments, others inside computer science, and a few — Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, UC San Diego — run dedicated bioinformatics or computational-biology departments with their own faculty.

The scale of the major reflects how concentrated demand has become. Just 355 bachelor’s graduates complete the bioinformatics CIP each year across 54 institutions, with output anchored at UC San Diego (98 completions), UC Santa Cruz (50), Virginia Commonwealth (37), CUNY New York City College of Technology (32), and Brigham Young (25). Career destinations stretch from biological technician at $52,000 through computer-occupations roles at $108,970, data-scientist tracks at $112,590 with 33.5% projected growth, and computer-and-information-research-scientist roles at $140,910 with master’s typically required. The five-year median earnings of $99,538 sit among the highest of any biology-adjacent CIP, reflecting a cohort that mostly clears the technician baseline and lands at industry data and computational roles instead.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Computer occupations, all other $109k +8.2% Bachelor's degree
Data scientists $113k +33.5% Bachelor's degree
Biological technicians $52k +3.5% Bachelor's degree
Computer and information research scientists $141k +19.7% Master's degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$100k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if biology and code both pull on you and neither feels like a chore, if you want to do real research on the cellular and molecular machinery of life but find pipettes alone dull without a Jupyter notebook open beside them, if statistics and probability feel like tools you reach for rather than obstacles to clear, if the named tracks at firms like Recursion, insitro, Genentech, Vertex, Regeneron, Moderna, Illumina, Tempus, or DeepMind’s Isomorphic Labs sound like destinations rather than abstractions, and if you can imagine spending a summer debugging a single-cell RNA-seq pipeline or fine-tuning a protein language model on a research-lab cluster.

Think twice if you want a four-year degree that lands you in a settled, narrow role straight out of school — bioinformatics rewards continuous learning, and the toolkit shifts every two or three years as new sequencing platforms, new model architectures, and new biology problems arrive. Reconsider if you dislike one of the two halves: a student who avoids calculus and statistics will find the computational core grueling, and a student who avoids organic chemistry and molecular biology will lose the domain depth that makes a bioinformatics graduate hireable over a generic data-science graduate. Pause if you do not plan to layer in research experience — UROP, REU, or a summer pharma or biotech internship — because the named entry roles at $75K–$110K assume a portfolio of real project work, not just coursework. The major is one of the highest-ROI bachelor’s bridges in biology when you stack CS, statistics, biology, and a research portfolio together; it underdelivers when treated as a single-track credential.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Bioinformatics

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA 0 98 98
University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA 0 50 50
Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA 0 37 37
CUNY New York City College of Technology Brooklyn, NY 0 32 32
Brigham Young University Provo, UT 0 25 25
University of Maryland-Baltimore County Baltimore, MD 0 15 15
Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL 0 15 15
Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, NJ 0 10 10
Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ 0 8 8
University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 0 7 7
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Computer Science

50,272 completions/yr

Information Science/Studies

10,334 completions/yr

Data Science, General

2,068 completions/yr

Mathematics and Computer Science

1,125 completions/yr

Human Computer Interaction

813 completions/yr

Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation

717 completions/yr

Computational Science

425 completions/yr

Medical Informatics

202 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

What do bioinformatics majors actually study day-to-day?
Coursework splits across three pillars — biology (genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology), computer science (data structures, algorithms, software engineering, databases), and quantitative methods (statistics, probability, linear algebra, machine learning). Lab and project time runs in Python with Biopython, pandas, scikit-learn, and PyTorch or JAX, plus R with Bioconductor for genomics. Workflow tools like Snakemake or Nextflow, version control with Git, Linux command-line work, and AWS or GCP cloud pipelines round out the toolkit. Upper-division terms typically include a faculty-mentored research project on real sequencing or structural data.
Do I need a bachelor’s, or is an associate’s enough for bioinformatics?
The data packet lists both associate’s and bachelor’s degree levels for this CIP, but completions concentrate at the bachelor’s level — programs like UC San Diego (98), UC Santa Cruz (50), and Virginia Commonwealth (37) all award bachelor’s degrees. Industry-facing roles at biotech, pharma, sequencing companies, and academic medical centers expect a bachelor’s as the floor credential. The associate’s pathway, where it exists, mostly serves transfer ramps into a four-year degree rather than direct hiring.
What kinds of jobs do bioinformatics graduates land with just the bachelor’s?
Realistic entry roles cluster between $75,000 and $110,000: bioinformatics analyst at sequencing or testing labs (Illumina, PacBio, Invitae, Natera, GeneDx, Tempus), computational-biology associate at biotech R&D arms (Genentech, Vertex, Regeneron, Moderna, Recursion, insitro, Ginkgo), data-science roles in pharma drug-discovery groups, and genomics-data analyst positions at academic medical centers like Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mass General Brigham, and Stanford Medicine. The packet’s data-scientist track at $112,590 with 33.5% projected growth captures one of the fastest-growing destinations, and the broader computer-occupations bucket sits at $108,970.
Is the AI wave a tailwind or a threat for this major?
It is the central tailwind. AlphaFold 3, ESMFold, RoseTTAFold, Boltz, and Chai-1 plus AI-driven drug-discovery firms — Recursion, insitro, Schrödinger, Atomic AI, Genesis Therapeutics, Iambic, Charm Therapeutics, Cradle Bio, EvolutionaryScale, Isomorphic Labs at Alphabet — have made computational biology one of the highest-demand hiring lanes in any STEM field over the last two years. NVIDIA BioNeMo, Microsoft Health Futures, and Anthropic and OpenAI biology research groups have widened the door further. Layering ML coursework, PyTorch or JAX fluency, and a research project on protein-structure or single-cell data onto the major is the single highest-leverage move for wage growth.
How is this different from computer science, data science, or biology general?
Computer Science (CIP 11.0701, 50,272 completions) is the broad CS umbrella with minimal biology depth. Data Science, General (30.7001, 2,068 completions) covers methods across any domain — finance, marketing, operations — without committing to biology. Biology, General is the inverse: deep biology, sparse computing. Bioinformatics is the only undergraduate CIP that requires real fluency in both halves at once, and it carves out the niche of computational genomics, structural biology, and clinical-data work where neither CS-only nor biology-only graduates can compete on equal footing. Computational Science (30.3001) overlaps in tools but applies them across physics, chemistry, and engineering rather than biology specifically.
What’s the typical next step after a bioinformatics bachelor’s?
The major splits roughly three ways. About a third go directly into industry — biotech, pharma, sequencing companies, or genomic-testing labs at $75K–$110K starting. Another third pursue PhDs in bioinformatics, computational biology, or genome sciences at programs like Harvard-MIT HMS, Stanford BMI, UCSF iPQB, U Washington Genome Sciences, U Michigan Bioinformatics, Yale CBB, Princeton QCB, Berkeley, and UCSC BME — where the wage curve clears $180K post-PhD at top biotech and tech-bio hybrids. The remaining share takes accelerated master’s programs (one to two years) at the same universities, which compress the time to mid-career roles around $130K–$180K.