Technology Grad Starting Salaries Drop, but Top the List

Buck up, recent computer science bachelor's degree holders. You are earning (or have the potential to earn) more than your peers by a nice margin.

Computer and engineering graduates are receiving some of the highest starting salaries at present, although year-over-year starting salaries for these groups are down, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers' Summer 2010 Salary Survey.

Information science graduates are averaging $55,084, which is a 5.7 percent increase from 2009. Computer science slipped slightly by .5 percent to $61,112; engineering graduates-who had fared really well at the beginning of the 2008 recession and even in to 2009-have seen a bit of a decline, also seeing a .5 percent decrease, to $58,970.

"Within the engineering fields, chemical engineering graduates enjoyed a 1.1 percent increase, for an average offer of $65,628, but many of the disciplines-including computer engineering, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering-saw their average offers decrease," NACE said July 8. "Computer engineering graduates saw the biggest decrease in the group: Their average offer fell 2.9 percent to $59,917. Electrical engineering graduates' average salary offer dropped 1.2 percent to $59,381 and the average offer to mechanical engineering graduates dipped less than 1 percent to $58,457."

Graduates in technology-related fields are faring much better than accounting, business, liberal arts and social sciences graduates, however. Accounting graduates are garnering starting salaries of $48,691 while business administration graduates have lost a chunk of starting-salary change and are only taking in $43,879. Liberal arts graduates are even worse off, taking in only $34,747.

The only business-centric areas that saw slight increases were economics, up 2.1 percent to $50,885, and finance, up .8 percent to $50,356. English majors saw an increase of 7 percent to $37,154, and sociology graduates saw an increase of 5.7 percent to $35,173.

No doubt the economy is dragging down most starting salaries, giving an across-the-board average of $48,661-down 1.3 percent from 2009.