MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Notre Dame Top New Chemical Engineering Rankings — Here's What the Earnings Data Actually Shows
Carnegie Mellon ChE grads earn a median $102,617 four years out — the highest field-specific earnings in a new 150-program ranking that also identifies Notre Dame, BYU, and University of Delaware as undervalued alternatives to brand-name engineering schools.
What the Rankings Actually Measure — and Why It Matters to You
College Transitions evaluated all 150 programs that awarded at least 12 chemical engineering bachelor's degrees between 2022 and 2024, scoring them across five components: major emphasis, program scale, academic rating, earnings and ROI, and PhD productivity. That last metric — pulled from NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates data spanning 2015 to 2024 — is what separates this ranking from most. It tells you not just where graduates get hired, but how many go on to become researchers, which is a strong proxy for the intellectual seriousness of an undergraduate program. Only about 8,700 chemical engineering bachelor's degrees are awarded per year nationally, so the field is concentrated enough that these distinctions are real. The gap between a top-25 program and one ranked 75th isn't marginal — it shows up in the earnings data, the doctoral placement rate, and the density of industry connections.
The Earnings Range Is Wide — And Location Drives a Lot of It
Field-specific earnings four years after graduation range from roughly $65,000 at the low end to $109,000 at the high end across 132 programs with available data. That $44,000 spread is substantial, and it doesn't map cleanly onto prestige. Geography and industry access do a lot of the work. Rice University tops the earnings table at $108,850, which reflects Houston's energy sector hiring ChE graduates into high-compensation process and reservoir engineering roles. UC Berkeley ($108,067) benefits from proximity to Bay Area tech and biotech. Penn ($107,816) and Cornell ($105,514) send graduates into Wall Street quantitative roles where the thermodynamics training transfers directly to financial modeling. Carnegie Mellon leads the ROI component of the overall ranking with a composite Earnings & ROI score of 96.1 and median field earnings of $102,617, a result of its graduates flowing into technology, finance, and chemical industry roles simultaneousl
This issue draws on reporting and data from College Transitions.