Stony Brook Alumni are rolling in it.
Stony Brook University is the highest ranked SUNY campus in the 2010-2011 PayScale College Salary Report, an annual ranking of universities based on the mid-career salaries of its graduates.
This year’s report places Stony Brook 23rd out of 374 state schools nationwide, good enough for the top seven percent.
Stony Brook graduates actually earn a bit less than their Binghamton University counterparts in their first five years of employment ($49,200 compared to $49,700). But Stony Brook’s median mid-career salary of $90,800 is higher than Binghamton’s and many other notable public universities, like the University of Michigan ($90,200), University of Texas-Austin ($87,500) and UNC-Chapel Hill ($82,900).
Compared to other universities, Stony Brook graduates have managed to weather the economic storm better than most. While Stony Brook’s ranking is down from 2008’s high mark of 18th, we actually jumped from 24th in 2009. In comparison, Binghamton fell from 11th in 2008 to 36th in 2009, then to 39th this year.
Like the ranking, Stony Brook’s mid-career median salary was also up from last year, one of only four schools in the top 25 to grow from year to year in that category.
While the general downward trend in median salaries doesn’t come as a big shock in the current economic climate, it is sharply contrasted with rising tuition costs at many universities. Essentially, today’s college students are paying more to get degrees that are in turn earning them less.
More to come from Think Magazine when the school year begins in one month.
