The denominator

What happened to the people who finished

Every pay figure on this site describes people who are working. This page describes the ones who are not. Four years after finishing a US qualification, some share of each graduating cohort has no earnings on record anywhere — no wages, no self-employment income. The federal government measures it and publishes it one college at a time. Read across programmes, it is the closest thing there is to a failure rate for a qualification.

15.4%

The worst rate published here, on the programme: Cosmetology and personal grooming, undergraduate certificate or diploma.

1.0%

The best rate published here: Rehabilitation and therapy, doctoral degree.

53,488

People across all the programmes below who finished, stopped studying, and had no recorded earnings four years later. The cohorts here total 1,015,000.

“Not working” is not the same as “unemployed”, and the difference is not a technicality

The measure is the absence of any earnings record for the whole year — no wages on a W-2, no positive self-employment income on a tax return. Nobody in this data was asked whether they wanted a job. So the count contains people who chose not to work: raising children, caring for a relative, travelling, studying something that is not a degree, living on a partner's income, or moving abroad. It also contains everyone who wanted work and could not get it. The two are not separated anywhere, by anyone, and we will not guess at the split. What the figure establishes is how many people completed a qualification and, four years on, were earning nothing from it or from anything else — which is the question the median pay figure is silent about.

Who is counted, and who is not

Only people who took federal student aid. The cohort is built from the federal student-loan and grant system, so completers who paid their own way are absent. That is roughly half of US undergraduates. Whether the missing half does better or worse is not published, and it is the single largest thing we do not know about these figures.

People still studying are in neither column. Someone who finished a bachelor's and went straight into a master's is excluded from both the working and the not-working count, which is right: they have not failed to find work, they have not looked. It also means the rate is a share of the people who actually left education, not a share of everyone who graduated.

The federal programme code is coarser than a job. Programmes are published at four-digit granularity and no finer. Radiography, respiratory therapy and surgical technology share one code; physical therapy shares another with occupational therapy. Rows covering more than one occupation are marked below and the detail sits under each one. Where a row is shared, the figure is about the code, not about any single job inside it.

Small programmes are suppressed at source, and we do not fill the gap. The Department withholds counts for institutions with cohorts too small to publish safely, and adds statistical noise to the ones it does publish. So each row here is a sum over the institutions large enough to report. The coverage column shows what share of the Department's own national total that sum recovers; nothing appears below 75.0%, and nothing appears with a cohort under 1,000.

And the small programmes we can see are not carrying the result. Every rate below was recomputed with the smallest reporting programmes — cohorts under 30 — removed. Across every row on this page the largest movement was 0.6 percentage points. That is the check people usually ask for and it comes back clean, so the figures are not an artefact of tiny cohorts.

Every programme we can publish, worst first

Sorted by the share who ended up with no earnings. It is deliberately not sorted by pay — the pay column is here so you can see what the ones who did find work are earning, and it never decides the order.

Programme	Not working, not enrolled	Cohort	Median pay of those who are working	Median federal debt at completion	Coverage
Cosmetology and personal grooming, undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 12.04 is cosmetology together with barbering, nail technology, esthetics and related grooming programmes. They lead to different state licences and somewhat different pay, and the Department publishes no split. What they have in common is the thing this row shows: they are the largest sub-degree programme in the country by completions, and they have the worst four-year outcome of any programme on this page.	15.4% 16,760	109,085	$26,307 $13,783–$41,270	$8,252	81.8% 788
Health and medical administration, associate's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.07 covers medical billing and coding, health information technology, medical office administration and, at graduate level, health services administration. The sub-degree end of this code is one of the most heavily marketed training products in the country, and its four-year outcome is among the worst on this page — but it is also the code where the Department suppresses the most, so the certificate row does not clear our coverage floor and is not published here at all.	14.1% 3,114	22,121	$37,073 $23,345–$49,261	$19,042	81.0% 213
Vehicle maintenance and repair, undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 47.06 is vehicle maintenance and repair: automotive technology, diesel and heavy equipment, collision repair, motorcycle and marine, and aircraft powerplant and airframe technology. Aviation maintenance leads to an FAA certificate and pays materially more than automotive work, and the Department publishes no split, so this figure is a blend and cannot be read as either.	9.7% 3,242	33,263	$51,586 $33,822–$71,553	$9,500	89.0% 263
Dental support (hygiene and assisting), undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.06 holds dental hygiene and dental assisting together, and the two are not comparable: dental hygiene is a licensed associate-degree role that pays around the associate figure here, dental assisting is a short certificate that pays far less. The credential level separates them better than the code does — the certificate row is mostly assisting, the associate and bachelor's rows mostly hygiene — but neither split is published, so neither is certain.	9.4% 1,703	18,040	$33,673 $21,167–$43,924	$9,201	75.3% 190
Ground transportation (truck and bus driving), undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 49.02 is ground transportation: truck and bus driving, and also flagging and traffic control. Most completions are truck driving. One caveat matters more here than anywhere else on this page — this covers only the driving schools that take federal student aid, and most CDL training is paid in cash or funded by a carrier and never appears in federal data at all.	8.4% 834	9,948	$52,118 $28,154–$74,052	$6,333	80.4% 74
Allied health and medical assisting, associate's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.08 covers medical assisting, pharmacy technician, medical transcription, phlebotomy, veterinary technology and several other support roles in one code. They pay very differently and the Department publishes no split.	8.1% 2,159	26,631	$42,269 $28,587–$56,048	$14,062	79.4% 376
Chiropractic, first professional degree CIP 51.01 is chiropractic and nothing else — no other programme is filed under it, so unlike most codes here the figure is about one qualification and one profession.	7.5% 235	3,126	$61,163 $33,422–$89,313	$193,488	100.0% 10
Health and medical administration, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.07 covers medical billing and coding, health information technology, medical office administration and, at graduate level, health services administration. The sub-degree end of this code is one of the most heavily marketed training products in the country, and its four-year outcome is among the worst on this page — but it is also the code where the Department suppresses the most, so the certificate row does not clear our coverage floor and is not published here at all.	7.4% 1,488	20,230	$58,716 $41,903–$80,437	$25,325	87.9% 204
Dietetics and clinical nutrition, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.31 is dietetics and clinical nutrition. The bachelor's degree no longer reaches the registered dietitian credential on its own — since 2024 the Commission on Dietetic Registration has required a master's — so this row covers a qualification that is now a step rather than a destination, which is part of why its four-year outcome is worse than the graduate rows in health.	7.1% 226	3,178	$55,753 $40,535–$68,442	$22,375	83.3% 67
Allied health diagnostic and treatment, undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.09 is the broadest code on this page and it is shared. Radiography, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, cardiovascular technology, sonography, perfusion, athletic training and physician assistant studies are all inside it, and the Department publishes no split. At associate level the code is dominated by imaging, respiratory and surgical technology; at master's level by physician assistant programmes, which is why the earnings jump. No figure here is specific to any one of those occupations and it must not be quoted as though it were.	6.1% 870	14,190	$57,584 $37,331–$79,965	$9,500	76.4% 256
Vehicle maintenance and repair, associate's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 47.06 is vehicle maintenance and repair: automotive technology, diesel and heavy equipment, collision repair, motorcycle and marine, and aircraft powerplant and airframe technology. Aviation maintenance leads to an FAA certificate and pays materially more than automotive work, and the Department publishes no split, so this figure is a blend and cannot be read as either.	5.8% 707	12,247	$58,424 $40,794–$77,509	$12,000	75.1% 152
Air transportation, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 49.01 is air transportation: professional pilot programmes together with aviation management, air traffic control and flight operations. The bachelor's row is mostly professional pilot and aviation management, and the Department publishes no split between them.	5.0% 229	4,552	$85,825 $61,701–$118,209	$22,067	93.0% 46
Law (research doctorate), doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 22.01 at doctoral level is the research doctorate in law and a small number of professional programmes the Department classes at this level rather than as first professional. It is not the ordinary route to practising law, which is the first-professional JD row.	4.7% 266	5,651	$105,518 $75,697–$161,837	$113,386	96.4% 25
Law (JD), first professional degree CIP 22.01 at first-professional level is the Juris Doctor. The figure is about law graduates, not admitted lawyers: it counts everyone who finished the degree, including those who never sat or never passed a bar examination. That is the right population for the question "was law school worth it" and the wrong one for "how many lawyers are out of work".	4.6% 1,860	40,840	$107,773 $75,568–$176,111	$106,239	97.0% 163
Architecture, bachelor's degree CIP 04.02 is architecture proper — the accredited professional degree route. It excludes interior architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning, which have their own codes. It is one of the cleaner codes on this page. Note that the degree is only the first of the three requirements for a licence: the experience hours and the six-division examination come after, and NCARB reports the average path from start to licence at 12.3 years.	4.6% 203	4,438	$66,914 $54,236–$78,634	$26,442	94.0% 79
Social work, bachelor's degree CIP 44.07 is social work, and the master's row is the MSW — the degree that leads to clinical licensure in every state. It is one of the larger and cleaner codes here. It does not include counselling or psychology, which have their own codes.	4.5% 1,259	28,250	$51,790 $39,212–$64,160	$23,611	93.1% 407
Architecture, master's degree CIP 04.02 is architecture proper — the accredited professional degree route. It excludes interior architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning, which have their own codes. It is one of the cleaner codes on this page. Note that the degree is only the first of the three requirements for a licence: the experience hours and the six-division examination come after, and NCARB reports the average path from start to licence at 12.3 years.	4.5% 96	2,118	$74,139 $62,872–$86,117	$31,166	84.4% 50
Practical nursing and nursing assistant training, undergraduate certificate or diploma Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.39 puts practical and vocational nursing — the LPN/LVN route — in the same code as nursing-assistant and orderly training, and at certificate level the two cannot be separated. Those are very different qualifications: one is a licensed clinical role reached after about a year, the other is a few weeks of training for work that pays far less. This figure is both of them together, and the mix is not published, so it may not be read as the LPN figure.	4.3% 2,047	47,882	$56,073 $37,200–$76,301	$10,605	84.2% 643
Public health, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.22 is public health: epidemiology, health education, environmental health and health policy, plus the MPH. It leads to no single occupation and no licence, which is unusual on this page and worth weighing — the qualification is real, but nothing legally requires it for any specific job.	4.3% 602	14,095	$58,808 $41,981–$79,154	$22,500	86.6% 163
Health and medical administration, master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.07 covers medical billing and coding, health information technology, medical office administration and, at graduate level, health services administration. The sub-degree end of this code is one of the most heavily marketed training products in the country, and its four-year outcome is among the worst on this page — but it is also the code where the Department suppresses the most, so the certificate row does not clear our coverage floor and is not published here at all.	4.3% 595	13,970	$89,981 $62,852–$126,886	$40,243	86.6% 165
Dental support (hygiene and assisting), associate's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.06 holds dental hygiene and dental assisting together, and the two are not comparable: dental hygiene is a licensed associate-degree role that pays around the associate figure here, dental assisting is a short certificate that pays far less. The credential level separates them better than the code does — the certificate row is mostly assisting, the associate and bachelor's rows mostly hygiene — but neither split is published, so neither is certain.	4.2% 353	8,378	$61,982 $42,175–$79,205	$15,375	83.7% 205
Allied health diagnostic and treatment, associate's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.09 is the broadest code on this page and it is shared. Radiography, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, cardiovascular technology, sonography, perfusion, athletic training and physician assistant studies are all inside it, and the Department publishes no split. At associate level the code is dominated by imaging, respiratory and surgical technology; at master's level by physician assistant programmes, which is why the earnings jump. No figure here is specific to any one of those occupations and it must not be quoted as though it were.	4.1% 1,226	29,788	$65,389 $46,431–$84,999	$14,653	84.6% 487
Public health, master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.22 is public health: epidemiology, health education, environmental health and health policy, plus the MPH. It leads to no single occupation and no licence, which is unusual on this page and worth weighing — the qualification is real, but nothing legally requires it for any specific job.	4.1% 563	13,669	$82,751 $61,518–$113,501	$41,000	87.0% 172
Communication disorders (speech and hearing), bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.02 covers speech-language pathology and audiology together. At master's level it is overwhelmingly speech-language pathology, because audiology moved to a clinical doctorate; at bachelor's level it is a pre-professional degree that qualifies you for neither on its own, which is worth knowing before enrolling.	3.5% 390	11,012	$58,928 $44,993–$73,005	$20,500	94.4% 203
Social work, master's degree CIP 44.07 is social work, and the master's row is the MSW — the degree that leads to clinical licensure in every state. It is one of the larger and cleaner codes here. It does not include counselling or psychology, which have their own codes.	3.4% 1,503	44,604	$65,123 $51,662–$79,737	$37,736	96.9% 248
Rehabilitation and therapy, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.23 covers physical therapy, occupational therapy, therapeutic recreation, art and music therapy and rehabilitation counselling together. The doctoral row is mostly the Doctor of Physical Therapy alongside occupational therapy doctorates; the master's row is mostly occupational therapy and counselling. Physical therapy alone cannot be extracted from any of them, so none of these is the physical therapy figure.	3.3% 137	4,167	$55,792 $40,044–$73,848	$25,000	80.5% 71
Dentistry (advanced and specialty), doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.04 at doctoral level is a small group of programmes the Department classes as doctoral rather than first professional, including advanced and specialty dental training. The ordinary route to practising dentistry is the first-professional row.	3.2% 35	1,089	$166,240 $98,293–$241,274	$373,155	95.0% 5
Pharmacy, doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.20 is pharmacy together with pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy administration. The first-professional row is the PharmD, the route to licensure; the doctoral row is largely research doctorates in pharmaceutical science, which lead to laboratory and industry work rather than a pharmacy counter.	3.1% 181	5,819	$136,696 $117,606–$156,076	$181,778	91.5% 36
Registered nursing, associate's degree CIP 51.38 is registered nursing, together with nursing administration, nursing research and clinical nursing specialisms. At associate and bachelor's level it is almost entirely pre-licensure programmes leading to the NCLEX-RN, so the figure can fairly be read as being about becoming a registered nurse. At master's level and above it also carries nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, nurse midwives, nurse educators and nursing administrators, which are different jobs with different pay.	3.0% 2,548	86,299	$80,813 $61,109–$103,839	$14,910	95.0% 862
Pharmacy, first professional degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.20 is pharmacy together with pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacy administration. The first-professional row is the PharmD, the route to licensure; the doctoral row is largely research doctorates in pharmaceutical science, which lead to laboratory and industry work rather than a pharmacy counter.	2.9% 438	14,903	$138,348 $120,409–$158,074	$141,047	93.0% 80
Allied health diagnostic and treatment, bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.09 is the broadest code on this page and it is shared. Radiography, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, cardiovascular technology, sonography, perfusion, athletic training and physician assistant studies are all inside it, and the Department publishes no split. At associate level the code is dominated by imaging, respiratory and surgical technology; at master's level by physician assistant programmes, which is why the earnings jump. No figure here is specific to any one of those occupations and it must not be quoted as though it were.	2.8% 320	11,503	$70,786 $50,919–$95,942	$25,090	79.8% 226
Dentistry (DDS/DMD), first professional degree CIP 51.04 at first-professional level is the DDS and DMD. It does not include dental hygiene or dental assisting, which are CIP 51.06 and appear separately. Specialty residencies taken after the degree are also outside it.	2.7% 210	7,918	$170,812 $110,187–$239,976	$257,402	98.6% 53
Dental support (hygiene and assisting), bachelor's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.06 holds dental hygiene and dental assisting together, and the two are not comparable: dental hygiene is a licensed associate-degree role that pays around the associate figure here, dental assisting is a short certificate that pays far less. The credential level separates them better than the code does — the certificate row is mostly assisting, the associate and bachelor's rows mostly hygiene — but neither split is published, so neither is certain.	2.6% 82	3,202	$68,061 $51,213–$83,379	$20,000	91.3% 69
Registered nursing, bachelor's degree CIP 51.38 is registered nursing, together with nursing administration, nursing research and clinical nursing specialisms. At associate and bachelor's level it is almost entirely pre-licensure programmes leading to the NCLEX-RN, so the figure can fairly be read as being about becoming a registered nurse. At master's level and above it also carries nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, nurse midwives, nurse educators and nursing administrators, which are different jobs with different pay.	2.5% 4,421	177,214	$88,910 $67,853–$114,470	$22,310	97.1% 825
Rehabilitation and therapy, master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.23 covers physical therapy, occupational therapy, therapeutic recreation, art and music therapy and rehabilitation counselling together. The doctoral row is mostly the Doctor of Physical Therapy alongside occupational therapy doctorates; the master's row is mostly occupational therapy and counselling. Physical therapy alone cannot be extracted from any of them, so none of these is the physical therapy figure.	2.5% 302	11,993	$71,416 $53,551–$86,212	$56,717	88.6% 187
Optometry, first professional degree CIP 51.17 at first-professional level is the Doctor of Optometry. It is a small and well-defined code: sixteen institution groups report, and they cover 86% of the Department's national count.	2.4% 42	1,740	$131,525 $100,524–$158,455	$172,132	86.1% 16
Communication disorders (speech and hearing), master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.02 covers speech-language pathology and audiology together. At master's level it is overwhelmingly speech-language pathology, because audiology moved to a clinical doctorate; at bachelor's level it is a pre-professional degree that qualifies you for neither on its own, which is worth knowing before enrolling.	2.2% 249	11,235	$67,030 $53,057–$82,358	$41,000	93.2% 223
Nursing (advanced practice and administration), master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.38 is registered nursing, together with nursing administration, nursing research and clinical nursing specialisms. At associate and bachelor's level it is almost entirely pre-licensure programmes leading to the NCLEX-RN, so the figure can fairly be read as being about becoming a registered nurse. At master's level and above it also carries nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, nurse midwives, nurse educators and nursing administrators, which are different jobs with different pay.	1.7% 1,064	62,282	$120,193 $94,642–$149,472	$42,730	95.8% 391
Medicine (doctoral programmes), doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.12 at doctoral level is a mixture of programmes the Department classes as doctoral rather than first professional. The ordinary MD and DO route is the first-professional row, and the same residency caveat applies to both.	1.5% 73	4,714	$118,504 $77,695–$219,037	$216,633	76.6% 21
Medicine (MD/DO), first professional degree CIP 51.12 at first-professional level is the MD and DO. Read the earnings figure with the calendar in mind and it stops being surprising: four years after finishing medical school almost everyone in this cohort is a resident, and a resident's salary is not a doctor's salary. This row measures the bottom of the curve, not the plateau, and the Department publishes nothing further out.	1.3% 423	31,703	$112,460 $77,012–$214,525	$193,336	86.3% 128
Rehabilitation and therapy, first professional degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.23 covers physical therapy, occupational therapy, therapeutic recreation, art and music therapy and rehabilitation counselling together. The doctoral row is mostly the Doctor of Physical Therapy alongside occupational therapy doctorates; the master's row is mostly occupational therapy and counselling. Physical therapy alone cannot be extracted from any of them, so none of these is the physical therapy figure.	1.3% 56	4,291	$81,641 $67,036–$93,971	$102,124	80.9% 44
Nursing (advanced practice and administration), first professional degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.38 is registered nursing, together with nursing administration, nursing research and clinical nursing specialisms. At associate and bachelor's level it is almost entirely pre-licensure programmes leading to the NCLEX-RN, so the figure can fairly be read as being about becoming a registered nurse. At master's level and above it also carries nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, nurse midwives, nurse educators and nursing administrators, which are different jobs with different pay.	1.3% 18	1,387	$133,099 $107,508–$174,772	$67,996	81.9% 22
Allied health diagnostic and treatment, master's degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.09 is the broadest code on this page and it is shared. Radiography, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, cardiovascular technology, sonography, perfusion, athletic training and physician assistant studies are all inside it, and the Department publishes no split. At associate level the code is dominated by imaging, respiratory and surgical technology; at master's level by physician assistant programmes, which is why the earnings jump. No figure here is specific to any one of those occupations and it must not be quoted as though it were.	1.2% 166	13,462	$127,347 $103,242–$152,756	$109,092	83.6% 161
Nursing (advanced practice and administration), doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.38 is registered nursing, together with nursing administration, nursing research and clinical nursing specialisms. At associate and bachelor's level it is almost entirely pre-licensure programmes leading to the NCLEX-RN, so the figure can fairly be read as being about becoming a registered nurse. At master's level and above it also carries nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, nurse midwives, nurse educators and nursing administrators, which are different jobs with different pay.	1.1% 74	7,033	$138,131 $106,294–$185,434	$69,145	81.3% 113
Rehabilitation and therapy, doctoral degree Shared code — covers more than one occupation CIP 51.23 covers physical therapy, occupational therapy, therapeutic recreation, art and music therapy and rehabilitation counselling together. The doctoral row is mostly the Doctor of Physical Therapy alongside occupational therapy doctorates; the master's row is mostly occupational therapy and counselling. Physical therapy alone cannot be extracted from any of them, so none of these is the physical therapy figure.	1.0% 119	11,740	$82,893 $68,836–$95,078	$87,112	89.0% 150

Source: US Department of Education, College Scorecard, Field of Study data, release of 10 June 2026. Earnings are measured four years after completion and are national figures published by the Department; the not-working rate is our own sum of the institution-level counts they publish. Coverage is that sum as a share of the Department's own national worker count for the same programme and level, with the number of reporting institution groups beneath it. · view

How to read the two money columns

The pay column is a survivor's figure, and that is the point. It is the median for the people in the same cohort who were working — the ones in the other column are not in it. Every median on every pay site is built that way; almost none of them show you the column next to it. Reading the two together is the only way the pay figure means anything: a high median beside a high not-working rate is a programme where the people who make it do well and a meaningful share do not make it.

The debt column is a floor, not a price. It is the median federal loan debt carried at completion — what people actually borrowed from the government. It excludes grants, savings, family money, private loans and living costs, so the real cost of every programme here is higher than the number shown, by an amount nobody publishes. It is also a median across the institutions that report one, which is not the same as a median across students.

Four years is early for some of these and late for none. For a certificate, four years out is a settled career. For medicine it is the middle of a residency, which is why the medical rows show earnings far below what those doctors will eventually make — the figure is real, it is simply measuring the bottom of the curve. The Department publishes nothing further out, so neither do we.

None of this says a programme is bad. A qualification can be legally required, or the only route into work you would rather do, and still show a poor four-year outcome. What the column does is stop the pay figure being read as a promise.

All credentials, by payback period · How this is calculated · Data sources