Top 10 Biomedical Engineering Schools by Salary

Engineering is one of the most handsomely rewarded academic disciplines and, engineering continues to be the highest-paying major at the baccalaureate level. Biomedical engineers' compensation is competitive with the pay offered by many other engineering niches.

Qmed Staff

Updated December 22, 2015

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, biomedical engineers take home an average salary of $91,760--more than the roughly $87,000 salary range that is the average for civil and mechanical engineers and approximately the same as materials engineers' salary of $91,150. Still, biomedical engineers take home less pay on average as do electrical engineers, computer hardware engineers, and chemical engineers.

That said, the university where a biomedical engineering student chooses to attend can have a substantial influence on average compensation. Here, we round up the average starting salary for some of the top biomedical engineering programs in the United States.(Already in medtech and want to know how your salary stacks up to your peers? Check out MD+DI's 2015 Medtech Salary Survey.)

For the sake of comparison, a USA Today roundup from earlier this year reports that the average starting salary for all types of engineers is $62,998.

In the roundup below, we rank the top starting salaries for biomedical engineering grads using data from StartClass. (Note: In the case that there was a discretion between in-state vs. out-of-state tuition, in-state amounts were use.)

1. Stanford University (Stanford, CA)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $98,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 5.7%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 18,346
Tuition: $45,195

2. Columbia University (New York City)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $75,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 7.8%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 26,050
Tuition: $41,425

3. San Jose State University (San Jose, CA)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $73,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 64.1%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 30,236
Tuition: $7,323

4. Duke University (Durham, NC)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $70,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 14.7%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 15,467
Tuition: $47,243

5. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MA)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $70,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 19.5%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 20,918
Tuition: $47,060

6. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $68,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 60.9%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 44,942
Tuition: $15,020

7. University of Washington (Seattle, WA)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $67,100
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 55.5%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 42,444
Tuition: $12,394

8. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $67,800
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 7.9%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 2231
Tuition: $43,362

9. Northwestern University (tied)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $65,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 13.9%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 20,959
Tuition: $47,251

9. Cornell University (tied)

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $65,000
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 15.0%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 21,131
Tuition: $47,286

10. University of California, Berkeley

Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $64,800
Undergraduate Acceptance Rate (campuswide): 14.2%
Total Enrolled Students (campuswide): 36,137
Tuition: $12,972

Runners Up

University of Pennsylvania
Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $62,500

University of Wisconsin, Madison
Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $62,000

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $60,800

Georgia Institute of Technology
Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $60,300

University of California, Los Angeles
Avg. starting salary for BME grads: $60,000.   

Brian Buntz is the editor-in-chief of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @brian_buntz.

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