One reason why you might want to attend an Ivy League college or similar college is to earn a higher income. As a parent, you hope your child attending an elite university will make them upwardly mobile. A better life is what every parent wants for their kids.

However, the median income earned by Ivy League graduates from U Penn, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, and Brown is unimpressive in the beginning. For schools with single-digit acceptance rates, you’d think the median income earned would be much higher. Ivy League colleges are consistently ranked in the top 20 out of almost 4,000 colleges in America.

Before you find out how much the median income figure ten years after starting school is, take a guess at what it might be. $150,000? $200,000? $250,000+?

Median Income Earned By Ivy League Graduates

According to the Department of Education Scorecard, former Ivy League attendees who received federal aid earn a median of about $90,500 a decade after starting school.

The Scorecard is data used to help prospective students and their parents make more informed decisions about where to attend college.

Does $90,500 sound like an impressive income to you as a 28-32-year-old top university graduate? It’s OK, but it’s not blowing my socks off.

If you are to attend a top 0.375 percent university, then expectations are for you to make a top one percent income for your age group, not a top twenty five percent income.

A top one percent income for the 27-to-31-year-old age group was about $170,000 in 2014. For the 32-36-year-old age group it was about $210,000.

In 2023, assuming a three percent annual inflation since 2014, a top one percent income for the 27-to-31-year-old age group is about $222,000, and for the 32-36-year-old age group it is about $274,000.

$90,500 is quite a big shortfall for both age groups! The shortfall is even greater when compared to top 0.1% income earners by age.

Source: Professors Faith Guvenen, Greg Kaplan, Jae Song 2014

Median Income By Ivy League University

To get a little more granular, let’s look at the median income earned 10 years after attendance by Ivy League university according to the Department of Education Scorecard.

If you want to potentially make the most amount of money 10 years after attendance, attend the University of Pennsylvania with a median earnings of $103,246. U Penn is known for its business school and heavy focus on working in industries that pay the most.

If making the most money 10 years after attendance isn’t your top priority, then consider attending Brown University. Brown is famous for its open curriculum, where students have greater freedom to study what they want. Its graduates have a median earnings of $78,943.

1. University of Pennsylvania

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $103,246
• Average annual cost: $25,046
• Median debt at graduation: $16,763

2. Princeton University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $95,689
• Average annual cost: $9,836
• Median debt at graduation: $10,450

3. Dartmouth College

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $91,627
• Average annual cost: $32,410
• Median debt at graduation: $17,000

4. Cornell University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $91,176
• Average annual cost: $37,042
• Median debt at graduation: $14,500

5. Columbia University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $89,871
• Average annual cost: $22,823
• Median debt at graduation: $21,500

6. Yale University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $88,655
• Average annual cost: $15,296
• Median debt at graduation: $13,142

7. Harvard University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $84,918
• Average annual cost: $13,872
• Median debt at graduation: $12,665

8. Brown University

• Median earnings 10 years after attendance: $78,943
• Average annual cost: $29,544
• Median debt at graduation: $13,000

Data Is Only From Students Who Took Out Federal Loans

The one big caveat about the median earnings data is that it reflects only students who received federal student aid. Students and families who were able to pay for college without the need for federal financial aid were not included.

One can logically assume that those students and families who do not apply for federal financial aid are wealthier than students and families who do. Non-federal financial aid recipients may also be smarter, thereby receiving more merit scholarships and grants.

Below is data compiled by Elaine Huang from The Daily Princetonian that highlights 49% to 65% of Ivy League students applied for financial aid from 2016 – 2020.

As a result, perhaps the median income earned by Ivy League graduates after attending is higher. Wealthier people tend to have wealthy connections that help their kids get even wealthier.

It’s curious to see students from Brown, the university that has the lowest percentage of financial aid applicants, also has the lowest median earnings 10 years after graduation.

One could make the assumption that Brown students may come from the wealthiest families who need less financial aid. Given they come from wealthier families, their students can also afford to major in areas that don’t translate as often into jobs in the highest-paying industries.

Whereas with Penn, even though the percentage of students applying for financial aid is similar, its students focus heavily on joining the finance and management consulting fields. Companies like McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs are at the top of their lists.

Mid-Career Earnings Of Ivy League Graduates And Non-Ivy League Graduates

The data from the Department of Education Scorecard was unsatisfactory to me. As a middle-aged man, I wanted to know how much Ivy League and non-Ivy League graduates earn more than 10 years after attending.

Searching further, I found more information by US News & World Report and PayScale that paints a clearer picture about pay differences.

Early-career (three years of work experience) median pay in 2022 was $86,025 for Ivy League graduates, compared to $58,643 for those who graduated from other universities. A 47% pay difference is significant.

Mid-career (20 years of work experience) median pay in 2022 was $161,888 for Ivy League graduates, compared to $101,777 for those from other institutions. A difference of $60,111 a year in gross annual pay difference (59%) 20 years after college is massive!

If two of these Ivy League mid-career professionals marry, they’ll have my well-documented $300,000+ household income. With a $300,000+ household income, they’re living a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in an expensive coastal city and an upper-middle-class lifestyle everywhere else.

Hence, to get the most out of your attendance at an Ivy League school or similar-level school, work a long time, make lots of great friends, and marry a fellow graduate.

Work Long Enough Post Graduation To Make Attendance Worthwhile

To increase your Return On Investment (ROI) attending an Ivy League or similar school, work as long as possible. Forsake the FIRE movement, which I helped ignite in 2009. The longer you work, the greater the earnings gap compared to non-Ivy League graduates.

However, lasting 20 years in one profession is hard. Personally, I could only last for 13 years in banking before I was burned out. Even with today’s greater work flexibility due to work-from-home and technology, I still might have lasted for only 20 years at most.

If you end up changing professions, you may have to take a large pay cut. A pay cut lowers your ROI, but at least you might be happier doing something new.

If you’re thinking about retiring early or taking things easier before age 40, then attending an Ivy League school may not be worth it, especially if you don’t get scholarships or grants.

The same logic goes for those who want to become doctors, professors, scientists, or lawyers. The more education required by a certain profession, the longer you should or may need to work.

Below is a chart that highlights mid-career median pay by Ivy League school. The likelihood of earning six figures a year in one’s 40s is high. As a parent, this should be comforting.

Source: USNWR and PayScale

Yes, A High Salary Isn’t Everything

Of course, earning the highest salary you can after college isn’t the most important thing to all students and families. Meeting great people, having an amazing time, and building a network of lifelong friends are equally important to some people. So is finding a soulmate.

But this is a personal finance site that is focused on input and output. Measuring the average income for new college graduates and graduates with decades of experience are important for making an informed decision about where and whether to attend college.

Having a great time in college and earning a high income after graduation are not mutually exclusive. You might as well get the best experience and the best financial returns from your investment. Because the more money you make, the more options you will have in the future.

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Occupation Profiles Of Select Ivy League Graduates

To get even more granular, I thought I’d profile recent Ivy League graduates to see what they are doing. Understanding the end goal will help us decide whether the effort is worth it.

Given there’s an upcoming Supreme Court decision on race and college admissions, I read a 2019 article by Jay Caspian Kang entitled, Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian Americans? The article profiled several Asian-American students at Ivy League schools.

Given it is four years later, I was curious to see what these graduates are doing now. Their occupations will also help give context to the $86,025 median income figure three years after graduating and the $90,500 median income figure 10 years after attendance in context.

Thang Diep (Harvard 2019)- Post graduate fellow at the Vietnamese American Initiative for Development (VietAID). Thang is likely earning less than $86,025.

Sally Chen (Harvard 2019) – Education Equity Policy Manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action. Sally is likely earning less than $86,025.

Fatima Shahbaz (Harvard 2020) – Business Analyst at McKinsey & Co. Fatima is likely earning closer to $160,000.

Catherine Ho (Harvard 2021) – Graduate Student In Asian American Studies at UCLA. Catherine is definitely earning less than $86,025 as a student. When she graduates in 2023, she will likely also earn less then $86,025.

Alex Chen (Yale 2023) – Intern at Snap. Alex is still in school, but will likely earn more than $150,000 his first year out if he works as a software engineer.

One More Ivy League Occupation Profile And Some Reflection

Then I read a book written in 2019 entitled The Years That Matter Most – How College Makes Or Breaks Us, by Paul Tough. It’s a great book.

Tough highlighted a female student named Shannen Torres who got rejected by U Penn and Princeton, but got into Stanford.

After graduating in 2021 with a BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Religion, she got her Masters in Latin American studies. She now works as a Communications Coordinator at Climate Leadership Initiative in San Francisco. Her income is likely less than $86,025.

If I was the father of any of these college graduates, I’d be proud of what they are doing, no matter how much or how little they are making. I just want my kids to pursue a career that pays enough and brings them joy and meaning.

How would you feel if you were one of their parents?

And if these graduates decide to do something else down the road, they’ll easily be able to pivot.

Enjoy High School More

Given the median income earned 10 years after attendance is only $90,500 for an Ivy League graduate, high school students don’t need to worry as much about getting into a top 25 college anymore. There are likely 100 colleges that will provide for similar income and career opportunities as Ivy League colleges.

The increase in breadth of colleges able to provide similar opportunities should also help alleviate the stress parents feel too. I know it does for me.

But even if you don’t graduate from a top-100-ranked college, just graduating from college will help your earnings power.

According to the National Center For Education Statistics, the median annual earnings for 25-34-year-olds with a Bachelor’s degree is $59,600. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for all workers with Bachelor’s degrees is $69,368 in 2021.

Sure, the earnings difference between attending an Ivy League university and any one of the ~4,000 colleges in America is significant. But not such much if you attend a top 100 college. Further, making the most amount of money after graduating may not be a student’s priority.

If money was your priority, you’d get a major in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Pharmacy, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Nuclear Engineering, with average salaries over $100,000.

Go To An Affordable University

If you can attend an Ivy League school or a similar school with enough grants to make it affordable, go for it. If you can’t get in, don’t worry. Just select another university that offers you the lifestyle and major that you want at an affordable price.

Earning $90,500 as a 27-to-32 year old is nice. So is earning $161,888 twenty years after graduation, especially if you can marry a person with a similar income. But it is underwhelming if you went to a top one percent university.

Therefore, if you do attend an Ivy League school or a similar school, make sure you develop great relationships that can improve the quality of your life.

Focus On Building Things And Helping Others

If you don’t make great relationships or earn a corresponding top one percent income, then at least do something amazing. Create something new or do work that helps others.

Remember all the great extracurricular activities you were doing in high school to try and get into college? I bet the majority of those activities weren’t about making as much money as possible! Instead, many of your activities likely involved helping others.

Consider painting a masterpiece that gets picked up by the NYC Museum of Modern Art. Be a violinist at Carnegie Hall. Write a bestselling book that changes people’s lives. Reduce child hunger in your city. Invent a device that helps those with visual impairments see better. Or cure cancer already! Yes, someone please cure cancer.

If you do something amazing, you will likely get rewarded handsomely. The reward may not always be financial, but at least you will benefit spiritually.

Readers Questions and Suggestions

With the difficulty of getting into an Ivy League school, are you surprised Ivy League graduates don’t earn more? Why is there still so much demand to attend the top-ranked universities, when plenty of four-year accredited universities will do?

Looking to leave a soul-sucking job with money in your pocket? Pick up a copy of How To Engineer Your Layoff. It will teach you how to negotiate a severance so you have a financial buffer to do what you really want. Use the promo code ‘saveten‘ to save $10.

Join 60,000+ others and sign up for the free Financial Samurai newsletter and posts via e-mail. Financial Samurai is one of the largest independently-owned personal finance sites that started in 2009. 

Filed Under: Career & Employment, Education

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Standing, left to right: Daniel Byrnes, Christopher Zilli, Andrew Keppler, Hassan Bias, and Stony Brook Local 614 President Carlos Speight; seated, John Lopez; not pictured, Kenneth Gifft and Joseph Lorio

In Spring 2020, a unique collaboration formed between the Electrical Training Center in Copiague, NY, and several Stony Brook University groups to build an HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) apprenticeship program that would provide graduates with critical skills needed to serve the changing HVAC demands from both the university and hospital.

CSEA Local 614, through the State CSEA Partnership Program, worked in tandem with Stony Brook University’s Human Resources, Labor Relations, and Campus Operations and Maintenance teams to establish an apprenticeship program that would provide eligible Civil Service employees with the opportunity to acquire HVAC skills and experience needed in the workforce. Graduates earn a Grade 12 in the Service and Repair Mechanic (HVAC) title series.

“These positions are absolutely critical in providing necessities like heat, hot water, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical distribution to the entire university and hospital community,” noted Terence Harrigan, associate vice president for Campus Operations and Maintenance. “Through hard work and dedication, each of these graduates is now armed with an increased skill set to serve the changing needs and demands of the university and hospital.”

The following graduates started and completed the pilot program during the pandemic:

• Hassan J Bias
• Daniel Barrett Byrnes
• Christopher J. DeRosa
• Andrew Thomas Kepler
• John X Lopez
• Joseph K Lorio
• Michael Yee
• Christopher A Zilli

For more information, visit CSEA local helps create apprenticeship program for members or the Human Resources website.

The post Eight Graduates Full First HVAC Apprenticeship Course | appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SANTA CLARA, Calif .– Four-time Super Bowl champion Keena Turner and daughter Ella sat staring at the first slide of a project and tweaking it. Minutes became an hour and an hour became two.

That night in 2019 quickly disappeared and there was more to be done. However, this was not a common case of a parent helping a child with a job. On the contrary.

“He would be on the same slide for hours,” said Ella Turner. “I have to say, ‘Dad, we’ve got about 10 to go, we can’t be on that one slide for two hours. We have to keep going, and if you want to come back when we’re through,’ When we’re done with everything, we can come back ‘There were a couple of times when I said, “This is great, you can go ahead now.” He just had really high standards. “

That Keena Turner took his return to college extremely seriously – more than four decades after leaving Purdue for the NFL – should come as no surprise. As a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers from 1980 to 1990, Turner was an integral part of the dynastic Niners. All he has ever known is the highest level of proficiency, and he was determined to apply it to his return to college at the age of 60.

Much like in his football life, the 62-year-old gymnast wanted a suitably poetic closing chapter for all of his hard work: the opportunity to share a closing day with Ella at his alma mater.

A plan that had many stops and starts over the past 40 years finally came to fruition on May 15th in West Lafayette, Indiana. That day, Keena and Ella Turner walked side by side into the Ross Ade Stadium, where Turner had received consecutive All Big Ten honors as a junior and senior, settled for a ceremony that felt like it would never take place.

“This is the stadium I played in and it had all these kinds of emotions and memories,” said Keena Turner. “This last year we weren’t sure if there was going to be a physical degree so there was all this uncertainty about how it was going to happen and so Purdue had to have a physical degree and have all of the graduates in the stadium and it was great to have the opportunity to be recognized by family and friends in this way.

“I actually sat in the stands with Ella. I went in with Ella and when my school got a call I got up and got my school recognized, but I was there with her the whole time. That was really cool.”

Keena Turner received her diploma in organizational leadership from the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. Ella Turner graduated from the College of Health and Human Sciences with a degree in Sales and Sales Management. But the Turner family gained a lot more along the way.

The spark you need

Keena Turner was named an All-Big Ten junior and senior at Purdue. San Francisco 49ers

By the time Keena Turner left the NFL in 1990, he already knew he wanted to graduate and keep a promise to his mother. By that time, Harry Edwards, the noted civil rights activist who had worked as an advisor to the 49ers, had begun a graduation program for gamers at the University of San Francisco.

While that allowed Turner to keep his promise, the fact that he hadn’t finished what he had started at Purdue gnawed at him. Turner’s wife, Linda, soon reminded him of how much history he had with the boilermakers and what it would mean to him to have a diploma from the place where his name still rings.

For the past decade, Linda Turner had contacted Purdue to find out what her husband would need to graduate. It didn’t happen immediately, however, as Turner’s return to science was slowed down by a series of false starts.

“This thing had life and died multiple times,” said Keena.

It wasn’t until Ella decided to follow in her father’s footsteps that everything came together. Encouraged by her parents to explore schools outside of California the way they used to – Linda Turner is a graduate of Notre Dame – Ella evaluated all options.

Purdue was high on the list, but when her father offered to make calls on her behalf, she declined, preferring to be admitted on her own while keeping her options open. When it was adopted, she said it “definitely felt right”.

It turned out that it only took Keena two classes, one in science and one in senior management, to graduate from Purdue. Both could be completed virtually. When he learned he was able to close with Ella, who signed up in 2017, the opportunity was too good to miss.

“When I heard that possibility, I said, ‘I’m all in,'” said Keena.

Ella was quick to help her father choose the two classes he needed: physical geography and supply chain management.

“When I left it kind of got everything back on track,” said Ella Turner. “He immediately asked me if it was okay with me if he did it and he went with me and everything. I thought it would be the coolest thing ever.”

Family matters

As if going back to school after 40 years wasn’t difficult enough, Keena still had to worry about his day job. As Vice President and Senior Adviser to the General Manager of the 49ers, Turner has plenty of day-to-day responsibilities.

Because of this, Ella suggested that her father would be best able to track his final credits outside of the football season. Always a creature of habit, Turner felt he could handle the workload and have his summer free like any student (or soccer player) would.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” said Turner with a laugh.

Turner re-enrolled in 2019, which was also the year the 49ers returned to the Super Bowl. Reconciling work and school turned out to be no easy task, especially since the physical geography lessons summarized the work of a semester in just eight weeks.

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On a scouting tour of Notre Dame, LSU, Auburn, and Alabama with current Deputy General Manager Adam Peters, Turner stayed up late, turned in daily chapter assignments, and took three quizzes that week.

In early December, the Niners traveled east to play the Baltimore Ravens with a week-long stint in Bradenton, Florida before heading to New Orleans. One night while Trainer Kyle Shanahan & Co. was studying Drew Brees and the Saints, Turner focused on taking a quiz that had to be completed by midnight.

Turner signed up at around 11:15 p.m. and was ready for the quiz. At the worst possible time, the hotel’s wifi went down, and Turner looked for an alternative before realizing he had until midnight Pacific time to do it.

“He said he could do it and I said OK, but of course he was stressed here about completing his quizzes by the deadline and he travels and visits different schools to scout,” said Ella. “I said, ‘Look, I told you you could have just waited until summer,’ but he did it all. He was in a great mood.”

To do this, Turner relied on what he knows best: a team approach.

Linda had kept in touch with Purdue and helped her husband get the necessary credits. Keena said his wife had “breathed life” into the college idea on more than one occasion.

Ella ran point, helped her father enroll in his classes, made sure he knew how to use the technology needed to check his assignments and grades, and helped with class projects where she could.

Sheena Turner-August, the oldest of the Turner siblings and a psychology professor at Las Positas College in Livermore, Calif., Served her father as a sounding board when he had questions about interacting with professors, and she offered a perspective on how to be a student again gone after so many years. Turner’s son Miles, who plays basketball at the University of Portland, was there when needed.

“There were times when my wife did something to help, Ella did something to help, my son Miles did something to help, and my oldest daughter on the phone was just trying to help me keep going”, said Keena.

While Turner struggled a little with physical geography, he landed a B and finished his Supply Chain Management class with little problem, getting an A for his work.

A special day

“He always stressed and wanted to make sure I was comfortable with everything,” Ella Turner said of her father. “That meant a lot to me.” San Francisco 49ers

During the long journey to their graduation day together, the Turners were never entirely sure that they would actually attend a physical ceremony. The pandemic had put most of these celebrations on hold, but the country had reopened just in time for Keena and Ella to enjoy the day they had long talked about.

Even as the big day drew near, Keena remained careful to divert attention from his daughter’s performance.

“I didn’t even see it that way,” said Ella. “He’s my father; I would never think he was trying to take my shine off. But he always stressed and wanted to make sure I was comfortable with everything. That meant a lot to me.”

Now that graduation day has come and gone, Keena Turner is back to the 49ers. Ella is planning to move to Phoenix and is looking for a job in marketing or sales.

No matter where their next steps lead, they will always have the day that they will not soon forget. They sit together in a football stadium and celebrate each other’s achievement together, surrounded by the family who helped make everything possible.

“The feeling of being proud of her and seeing her accomplish this feat in my school and Purdue would have been more than enough,” said Keena. “But then the icing on the cake, that I’m there and that I’m part of it in this way and in this performance, won’t be much better.”

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