$126,000 = Your Salary Soon

The H-bomb is strong, at least according to PayScale, a global online compensation data company. It turns out that Harvard graduates can boast the second-highest mid-career median salary, tied with MIT for $126,000. Only kids from Dartmouth make more mid-career bank.

But the surprises don't end yet. Apparently philosophy majors earn more 10 years after college than business administration and nursing majors—but you'd still be better off in engineering. Aerospace, chemical, computer, and electrical engineering swept first through fourth places on the list of highest-earning undergraduate degrees.

Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at PayScale, said he believes that for the majority of Americans who don't attend elite schools, “the degree you get is a bigger influencer of your pay” than where you went to college.  But if you get your giggles from Gatsby, don’t trade in the Barker Center for the Science Center just yet. Lee acknowledges that an English major from Harvard could end up making six figures—still, he insists that such a case would be an exception.

Not only that, but 2 of the 10 most popular jobs held by Harvard University grads are executive director of a nonprofit organization and high school teacher. So if that career as a CEO doesn’t pan out, never fear. When all else fails, the whales will still need saving.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons