Field biology with an environmental tilt — and a master's degree usually finishing the sentence
Environmental Biology is applied conservation and ecosystems biology with a working bias toward agencies, consulting, and restoration. Roughly 366 students complete it each year across 55 U.S. colleges, with five-year median earnings near $50,500 — a number that reflects how often graduates start as field technicians before grad school unlocks the higher-paying titles.
- Schools offering
- 55
- Annual completions
- 366
- Typical degree level
- Associate's + Bachelor's
- Median earnings (5yr)
- $50k
About this major
Environmental Biology is the applied, working-biologist version of ecology. The CIP definition is broad on purpose — biodiversity, molecular and genomic evolution, mesoscale ecology, computational modeling, conservation biology, environmental microbiology, restoration ecology — but in practice the major sits where biology meets management, permitting, and field work. Coursework typically pairs organismal biology and field-methods labs with biogeochemistry, statistics, GIS, and an increasing dose of R and Python for ecological modeling. The largest U.S. producers — Colorado State University-Fort Collins (92 graduates a year), Michigan State, and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry — are land-grant or environmental-flagship institutions with field stations and long-running agency partnerships. The smaller programs at Cal Poly Pomona, Whitman, Washington University in St Louis, and Georgetown skew more research- or pre-grad-school.
The major fits students who genuinely like being outdoors collecting messy data and then sitting down to clean it. It rewards comfort with quantitative ambiguity — ecological systems rarely give clean answers — and a willingness to stack statistics, GIS, and a scripting language on top of natural history and species identification. Strong candidates often arrived through bird counts, watershed monitoring, scout or 4-H environmental work, or summer field assistantships, but a chemistry-and-stats sensibility matters as much as field instinct.
At scale, Environmental Biology is small but distributed: 366 completions across 55 colleges signals a major that exists in modest cohorts at field-oriented institutions rather than at urban privates. The career table is wide but hierarchical. Conservation Scientists ($67,950) and Zoologists/Wildlife Biologists ($72,860) anchor the bachelor's-accessible range. Biological scientists, all other ($93,330) pays well but in practice means MS-or-PhD research jobs at agencies, federal labs, and corporates. The five-year median earnings figure of $50,500 reflects the realistic mix — most graduates start in field-technician roles at $40,000–$55,000, and the higher-paying titles open up after a master's or several years of paid experience. Environmental consulting (Stantec, Tetra Tech, AECOM, Jacobs, ERM, Burns & McDonnell, HDR, Trihydro) is the most common bachelor's-level destination; federal land and resource agencies (USFWS, USGS, USFS, NPS, BLM, EPA, NOAA Fisheries, USACE) and state DEQ/DNR/Fish & Wildlife are the next-largest pool.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biological science teachers, postsecondary | $83k | +7.3% | Doctoral or professional degree |
| Biological scientists, all other | $93k | +1.2% | Bachelor's degree |
| Conservation scientists | $68k | +3.4% | Bachelor's degree |
| Zoologists and wildlife biologists | $73k | +1.6% | Bachelor's degree |
Earnings at a glance
Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.
Median 5-year earnings
$50k
Who this major is for
You may thrive here if you genuinely enjoy long days in the field collecting data in conditions that are too hot, too cold, or too wet, if you find yourself drawn to applied conservation problems where the answer depends on the watershed, season, and regulatory context, if you're willing to stack statistics, GIS, R or Python, and remote sensing on top of natural history because the field rewards quantitative ecologists more than naturalists alone, if a starting trajectory of field-technician years ($40,000–$55,000) followed by a funded master's program at UC Davis, SUNY-ESF, Bren UCSB, Michigan SEAS, or Yale F&ES reads as a feature rather than a setback, if you're attracted to mission-driven work at USFWS, USGS, NPS, EPA, or environmental consulting firms, and if the emerging carbon-credit and nature-based-solutions economy — Indigo, Pachama, Sylvera, NCX, restoration ecology firms — sounds like a future you want to help build.
Think twice if you want a clean linear job pipeline straight out of a bachelor's — the $50,500 five-year median reflects how often graduates land in term, seasonal, or technician roles before permanent professional positions open up; if relocating annually to chase USFS or NPS seasonal postings sounds exhausting rather than adventurous; if you can't realistically commit to or fund a 2-year master's program when most permanent ecologist, environmental-scientist, and consulting-senior titles require one; if you prefer mechanism-level laboratory biology, in which case Biochemistry, Cell/Molecular Biology, or Microbiology will fit better; if your real interest is environmental policy and advocacy rather than field data, where Environmental Studies (CIP 03.0103) or a JD/MEM at Yale, Duke, or Vermont Law often serves the goal more directly; or if you're chasing maximum near-term salary, in which case Environmental Engineering or a CIP-03 Environmental Science track with chemistry depth offer a higher bachelor's-level wage floor.
Top colleges for Environmental Biology
Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.
| College | Location | Assoc. | Bach. | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado State University-Fort Collins | Fort Collins, CO | 0 | 92 | 92 |
| Michigan State University | East Lansing, MI | 0 | 48 | 48 |
| SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry | Syracuse, NY | 0 | 40 | 40 |
| Monmouth University | West Long Branch, NJ | 0 | 20 | 20 |
| California State Polytechnic University-Pomona | Pomona, CA | 0 | 17 | 17 |
| University of Dayton | Dayton, OH | 0 | 16 | 16 |
| Washington University in St Louis | St. Louis, MO | 0 | 11 | 11 |
| Plymouth State University | Plymouth, NH | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Georgetown University | Washington, DC | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Whitman College | Walla Walla, WA | 0 | 9 | 9 |
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