Salaries for college graduates overall continue to climb as, for the second straight year, the increase in average salary for a graduating class has surpassed 7%, according to NACE’s Summer 2024 Salary Survey report, the final report on salaries for the Class of 2023.

The final overall average salary for the Class of 2023 of $64,291 is up 7.1% over the average of $60,028 for Class of 2022 graduates. This comes on the heels of the 7.4% rise in average salaries reported for the Class of 2022.

The salary increase complements employer hiring projections for the Class of 2023. The Job Outlook 2023 Spring Update survey found employers planned to hire 3.9% more graduates from the Class of 2023 than they did from the Class of 2022.

The top-paid categories of majors for Class of 2023 graduates at the bachelor’s degree level are all showing increases in salaries. In addition, results of the Winter 2023 Salary Survey show that more than half of respondents planned to hire graduates falling in the business and computer science fields, which have two of the largest salary increases at 7.4% and 5.1%, respectively.

The five top-paid categories of majors continue to fall in the same order as they did for both Class of 2021 and Class of 2022 graduates. Once again, computer and information sciences tops the list at an overall average starting salary of $91,411, which is up 5.1% from last year. (See Figure 1.)

A similar increase of 5% is reported for Class of 2023 engineering graduates, pushing their average salary past the $80,000 mark.

Just behind engineering, math and statistics majors have an overall average salary nearing the $80,000 mark, with a 4.8% increase bringing their average salaries to $79,859.

Among the top-paid categories of majors, Class of 2023 business graduates show the largest increase in average starting salary with their overall average growing 7.4% from $61,970 to $66,578.

Graduates in the health professions category have an overall average salary of $62,143, up 5.6% from last year’s average of $58,849. While this is a more moderate increase, Class of 2022 graduates had an 8.7% increase in overall average starting salary.

The Summer 2024 Salary Survey report provides actual starting salaries (not projections) for the college Class of 2023 and serves as the final salary report for the Class of 2023. The figures reported are for base salaries only and do not include bonuses, commissions, fringe benefits, or overtime rates. Data were gathered from Class of 2023 graduates through December 31, 2023, and reported to NACE through May 31, 2024. The salary data presented here were reported to NACE through its national Class of 2023 First-Destination Survey by approximately 356 colleges and universities nationwide and represent data for 772,865 graduates at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree levels. Most of the analysis provided here, however, focuses on the data provided for more than 91,000 bachelor’s degree graduates. NACE members can access the full report in MyNACE.