Physical sciences

Materials Sciences

Carnegie Mellon University · Pittsburgh, PA

Medium evidenceMatched peers8 institutions · related subjectsSee the evidence

The degree in numbers

Cost & earnings.

Annual tuition$63,829Institution-level tuition; programme fees may differ · before aid
Annual credentials awarded14Average of available recent award years; not the earnings sample size.

Earnings context

One career stage.
A clearer comparison.

USD · Doctoral · 2 years after completion
Same source release. National references exclude this degree.

Selected degree estimate$66,916
Physical sciences · national$69,338

Behind the number

Your comparison group.

Medium evidence

Related subjects at 8 matched peer institutions · doctoral

Grouped estimate. Middle half of comparison values: $48,872–$79,315.

Historical earnings archive. College Scorecard legacy FOS archive (file dated 2022-01-19; cohorts vary). Do not interpret this as today's graduate salary. Further study and career changes are not modelled by this early-career figure.

Doctoral outcomes · 2 years after completion
Institution & subjectReported earnings
Emory UniversityChemistry$49,019
University of Notre DameChemistry$48,432
Boston CollegeChemistry$69,338
Vanderbilt UniversityChemistry$47,260
Northwestern UniversityChemistry$93,342
University of PennsylvaniaChemistry, Physics$87,880
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyChemistry$64,493
Princeton UniversityChemistry$76,460
How matching & uncertainty work

We first look for the same subject code (or exact subject name), qualification, country, currency, source release and earnings horizon. Peer institutions are matched using admissions selectivity, completion rates, undergraduate size and institution type, with a small preference for the same region. These are institutional proxies, not a ranking of programme quality.

If subject-matched peers are sparse, we try related subjects at closely matched universities, related degrees at this university, then an explicitly labelled national reference. We never multiply a salary by a university prestige score.

Peer and national estimates give each reporting institution one vote, after taking the median of its related programmes. Shared branch-campus outcomes count once. The middle-half range describes variation between reporting institutions. It is not an individual salary range or a statistical confidence interval.

Evidence labels describe match quality and coverage, not validated prediction accuracy. Admissions and size are undergraduate institutional measures, so graduate-degree comparisons are especially approximate.

Historical cohort outcomes are not promised salaries or a causal effect of attending this programme. College Scorecard earnings cover eligible federal-aid recipients, not every graduate or international student. Source definitions ↗