Average salary for 27 year old college grad.

August 7, 2007 12:08 PM

What is the average salary for a 27 year old college graduate?

I know there are a lot of variables here (based on experience, skills, etc.), but I am just looking for some sort of range based on what you've heard, read, researched, or experienced.

posted by blueplasticfish to work & money (16 answers total)

Do you mean someone who graduated college at age 27, or someone who graduated college at the more usual age of 22 and has let 5 years elapse?
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:10 PM on August 7, 2007

That's a pretty random question -- I've known some 27-year-old engineers, a 27-year-old venture capital analyst, a 27-year-old bankrupt Internet businessman, and some 27-year-old bookstore clerks with English degrees. Needless to say, their rates of pay varied wildly.

But I'd say based on what I've heard or experienced, $25,000 to $35,000 would be a good salary for someone at the early stages of a professional career.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 12:13 PM on August 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

In what field? I'm a college grad but I choose to earn less than I could because I like my work. We need more info from you - are you feeling shorted? Do you have salary negotiations coming up?

If this is a purely statistical question, check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you're in the US.
posted by mdonley at 12:13 PM on August 7, 2007

What city? And what is the work experience?

A 27 year old in Washington, DC with 5 years of experience will make a lot more money than a 27 year old in Columbus, Ohio with no experience.

You need specifics.
posted by brokekid at 12:16 PM on August 7, 2007

His location is listed as Salt Lake City, Utah and as of November 2006 he was a business major at a large university.
posted by ND¢ at 12:25 PM on August 7, 2007

There are way too many variables to answer this question easily. When I was 27, I was making in the high $20s, but I have a friend who was making over $100K in an engineering position. I have another friend (who is 27 now) who makes about $1,000 a month under the table.
posted by AlisonM at 12:26 PM on August 7, 2007

Whoops, sorry for not previewing. That said, there's still a lot of wiggle room - what does he want to do with his business degree? If he goes into some sort of sales, that's usually commission based, and depending on what he sells, it could vary quite a bit.
posted by AlisonM at 12:28 PM on August 7, 2007

I would go to salary.com and type in what you're thinking of doing, rather than arbitrarily asking for numbers based on your age. Your age has very little to do with determining your salary - particularly if you just graduated. It's all the other variables that you mentioned (skills, experience) and more (location, industry, other benefits).

Most 27-year-olds I know are making between $35-80 (with some outliers of course), but that's for different cities and widely varying careers. In some cases it includes advanced degrees. I've known 22-year-olds earning $80 and 33-year-olds earning $35 in the same city.

I think any range that you glean from this will ultimately not be of much use to you, sorry. You might do better on salary.com or a similar site.
posted by ml98tu at 12:40 PM on August 7, 2007

Your university may keep stats for graduates. My university does 2-year and 5-year follow-ups, broken down by faculty and, I think, major.

Of course, it's not the most helpful information. Someone with a women's studies major who picked up a ton of computer science courses and now works as a software engineer in a major city is not in the same position as a computer science grad who decided to switch to doing tech support for a small non-profit in a rural area.
posted by acoutu at 12:40 PM on August 7, 2007

I have data!

In 1999, it was about $33,031, according to page 10 of of this US Census Bureau PDF. That's the figure for all workers age 25 to 29 with a bachelors degree who work full time, part time, or part of the year. For those in the same education and age bracket who work full time, the average was $38,118.

In 2006 dollars, that would be $39,719 for all workers, $45836 for full-time year round workers. The 2006 figures are from a pure inflation calculation, however, and it's not safe to assume that wages for this particular group have kept up with inflation without further census data to back up such a claim.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:58 PM on August 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Found by googling "earnings by age and education," incidentally, the information you're looking for is the third link down.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 1:00 PM on August 7, 2007

Beyond census statistics, I can't imagine how you can expect a legitimate answer to this question. I'm 26, as are all my high school friends. One works at Ernst & Young and makes over 90K a year doing internet security. I'm a freelance cartoonist dayjobbing at a non-profit in Washington DC, and therefore don't. Another friend is currently unemployed.

Not to be mean, but this question is really pointless unless you can narrow some variables here.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:25 PM on August 7, 2007

about 35K
posted by mattbucher at 1:37 PM on August 7, 2007

Why do you people all keep saying this is an unanswerable question? Clearly croutonsupafreak has answered it and you can even get more specific by race and gender with the PDF. The utility of data you get out of something like this is probably questionable (though I think you all make a lot of assumptions about what the poster wants with the data), but simply calculating an average salary is pretty simple and something the government hires a lot of people to do.
posted by atomly at 2:09 PM on August 7, 2007

The average amongst 27 year olds (or people who've passed that mark) that I know is around 40k AUD. That includes people on 5k a year, and others on 100k AUD. It's pretty individual. The modal salary is probably somewhere in the mid 50s.

Australia, Brisbane. Mostly IT workers.
posted by ysabet at 3:52 PM on August 7, 2007

Why do you people all keep saying this is an unanswerable question? Clearly croutonsupafreak has answered it...

Assuming he meant "in the United States" yes, which was not stated in the question at all.

This sort of statistic varies widely across regions, across demographics etc. People here are just trying to see if they can be more helpful.
posted by vacapinta at 4:07 PM on August 7, 2007