The Best Colleges for High-Paying Finance Jobs 💵

Key Takeaways

• Finance grads from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earn on average $175,439 in salary, a $73,608 premium over the median finance grad from a private institution.
• Harvard finance grads have the second-highest wage premium of $64,135, with an average annual salary of $165,996.
• After the first 10 years of graduating, the median finance grad earns an average salary of about $100,000 based on data from the Burning Glass Institute.

MIT Leads to Lucrative Careers

While MIT is most commonly known for its tech and engineering program, its business program is also world class.

MIT finance grads earn about $10,000 more than Harvard grads, where the cost of attending college is more than double that of MIT.

Meanwhile, the top public institution for producing high-paying finance grads stands as the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where the average salary was $140,022 in 2024.