UCSC ranked number two on Wall Street Journal list for top public colleges for high-paying jobs in engineering

New rankings from the Wall Street Journal place UC Santa Cruz as the number two public school for high-paying jobs in engineering, just behind UC Berkeley, and the number nine public school for high-paying jobs in data science and software. 

“Baskin Engineering graduates leave UC Santa Cruz with the technical and professional skills to thrive in their careers, and these new rankings reflect just that,” said Alexander Wolf, dean of the Baskin School of Engineering. “I’m proud of our diverse alumni who are currently shaping these dynamic industries, and look forward to seeing future generations of students embrace the success that awaits them.” 

UCSC graduates in engineering fields earn a $110,222 average yearly salary, which is a $20,048 premium over the median graduate in engineering. UCSC graduates in software earn a $119,458 average yearly salary, which is a $16,104 premium over the median graduate, and those in data science fields earn a $109,026 average yearly salary, a $8,703 premium over the median graduate. 
 
Students at the UCSC Baskin School of Engineering can study a variety of engineering disciplines across six departments, including highly ranked programs in computer science and engineering, robotics, applied mathematics, and computational media. Among UCSC students, students who majored in engineering report high salaries in their first jobs after college as compared to their peers, putting them on the path to social mobility. The computer science and engineering programs are very popular — 2020 rankings from American Society for Engineering Education showed that UCSC awarded the fifth most total bachelor's degrees in computer science in the country.

Many of the Baskin Engineering programs emphasize learning the modern directions of the information technology industry, with a focus on areas such as big data and autonomous vehicles. An emphasis on experiential learning means that students are embedded within an active research environment with a focus on developing new technology for social good.

The rankings also reflect UC Santa Cruz’s access and ties to Silicon Valley where Baskin Engineering graduates are in high demand. The UCSC Silicon Valley campus is a multidisciplinary hub for research and teaching relevant to the current tech and engineering industry, with programs in human-computer interaction, natural language processing, and more. 

The Wall Street Journal gathered this data from a Burning Glass Institute analysis of experience and pay data from Lightcast, a labor-market data firm, and Glassdoor, a company-ratings website. For each college, an annual salary premium was calculated using the difference between the earnings of the school’s graduates in their first 10 years after graduation and the median graduate in the field.