The class of 2023 threw their caps in the air and said goodbye to their time as undergraduates after Commencement on Monday. For a glimpse into their prospective future, the graduates can look at Northwestern’s annual “Beyond Northwestern” reports detailing post-graduation endeavors of previous classes six months after becoming alums.

Statistics include the main occupation of graduates, as well as the location, industry and salary of employed graduates. Generally, average salaries rose for the class of 2022 while the percentage of students employed or enrolled in further education has remained consistent.

Here’s what some of the past years have looked like for recent NU graduates.

Employment

Across the four graduating classes, about 70% of surveyed students are employed within six months after graduation. About 25% of surveyed graduates are enrolled in further education or a fellowship. About 1% of surveyed graduates are involved in military service, volunteer work or participating in other career-related activities. The remainder of surveyed students, between 3-5%, are actively applying for further education or are actively job searching.

Location

Most employed graduates who responded to the survey stayed within Illinois after graduation, though the percentage of students doing so has declined slightly from 49% in the class of 2019 to 45% in the class of 2022. The percentage of employed students living in California has consistently remained at 13% from the class of 2020 to the class of 2022. Meanwhile, the class of 2022 saw the highest percentage of students living in the Connecticut, New Jersey and New York region, at 19%, compared to 16% in the class of 2021, 13% in the class of 2020 and 15% in the class of 2019.

Industry

Business services, financial services and investment banking was the most popular industry for graduates in the class of 2019, class of 2020 and class of 2021. Consulting then took over as the most popular industry for the class of 2022. Business services, financial services and investment banking dropped to being the third most popular industry for the class of 2022, after engineering, which gained 5 percentage points between the class of 2021 and the class of 2022 to become the second most popular industry that year.

From the class of 2019 to the class of 2022, the engineering industry saw the largest percentage point increase of students entering the industry at an increase of 4 percentage points. Business services, financial services and investment banking meanwhile saw the largest percentage point decrease of students entering the industry at a decrease of 4 percentage points.

Across those same years, the research, science industry saw an increase of 2 percentage points while the education, teaching industry saw a decrease of 2 percentage points.

Salary
Northwestern’s “Beyond Northwestern” handout reported salary information by school for the class of 2021 and 2022, and by industry for the class of 2019 and 2020.

Students graduating from McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science saw the highest average salary in both the class of 2021 and the class of 2022 with a salary of $81,736 and $92,453, respectively.

For the class of 2021, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences saw the second highest average salary of the year at $66,425. For the class of 2022, Bienen School of Music saw the second highest average salary of the year at $83,680. However, only five Bienen graduates responded to that year’s survey, compared to 173 responses from Weinberg graduates and 74 responses from McCormick graduates that year.

The School of Communication and Medill took the bottom two spots in both years. Graduates from the School of Communication earned the least of the schools in the class of 2021 at an average salary of $51,509, compared to $54,856 for Medill graduates. Medill graduates then earned the least of their peers in the class of 2022 at an average salary of $56,549, compared to $60,816 for graduates of the School of Communication that year. Graduates of both schools from the class of 2022 earned more than graduates of those schools in the class of 2021.

Graduates from the School of Education and Social Policy in the class of 2022 earned about $8,500 more than graduates from SESP in the class of 2021, but graduates in both years still earned less than the average salary of Northwestern graduates.

The engineering industry had the highest mean starting salary of the class of 2019 at $86,756, while the technology industry had the highest mean starting salary of the class of 2020 at $86,658.

Engineering, technology, investment banking, financial services and consulting came out as the industries with the top five average starting salaries for both the class of 2019 and the class of 2020. In both years, the average starting salary in engineering and investment banking stayed above $80,000.

The education, teaching industry; government, nonprofit industry; and research, science industry had the lowest average starting salaries of the industries across both years, with all three having an average starting salary below $40,000 for the class of 2020.

The financial services industry had the highest upper-end starting salary point of the industries in both years, surpassing the second-largest upper-end starting salary for the class of 2019 by $130,000 and over $95,000 for the class of 2020. The industries with the second-largest upper-end starting salaries were the technology industry and the entertainment industry for the class of 2019 and the class of 2020, respectively.

The class of 2020 saw an increase in starting salaries in eight out of 13 industries compared to graduates in the class of 2019. For example, average starting salaries in the technology industry increased by $7,378 and in the business services industry increased by $8,219. However, average starting salaries decreased in the government, nonprofit industry by $4,802 and the education, teaching industry by $7,105.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @MadisonBratley

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