Top 10 Best Paying College Degrees

It's Friday, and you know that that means?  Time for a "Top 10 Friday" post!  If you've just made it through the first few weeks of college but haven't declared a major yet, this post should be a great resource for you— especially if a lucrative salary is one of your main goals.  Since most four-year college students don't declare a major until the end of their sophomore year, if you're a freshman just starting out, you've got a little time to do some research and find just the right niche.  Based on information from Education-Portal.com, these college degrees may be a great place to start!  (If engineering and mathematics are your strengths, you're in luck!)
  
1. Petroleum Engineering - Median starting salary: $93,000 - Median mid-career salary: $157,000
Build tools for improving oil and gas production, offer technical consulting and oversee drilling projects.

2. Chemical Engineering - Median starting salary: $64,800 - Median mid-career salary: $108,000
Apply interdisciplinary techniques from engineering, physics and chemistry to design processes for making chemicals and chemical products and improving chemical plant equipment.

3. Aerospace Engineering - Median starting salary: $59,400 - Median mid-career salary: $108,000
Design, operate and troubleshoot simulators, computer systems, communication systems, flight instruments, and launching and tracking devises.

4. Nuclear Engineering - Median starting salary: $63,900 - Median mid-career salary: $104,000
Utilize theories from nuclear science and engineering to design and troubleshoot systems for the release, utilization and control of nuclear energy and waste.

5. Electrical Engineering - Median starting salary: $60,800 - Median mid-career salary: $104,000
Operate, design and troubleshoot electrical systems and equipment. They work for a variety of sectors: industrial, commercial, scientific organizations or the government.

6. Applied Mathematics - Median starting salary: $56,400 - Median mid-career salary: $101,000
There are several career options with this degree including finance, economics, data mining, environmental science, digital imaging and bioinformatics.

7. Biomedical Engineering - Median starting salary: $54,800 - Median mid-career salary: $101,000
Combine biology, biomechanics and engineering to design, operate and troubleshoot health systems and products. Research areas include:  medical instruments, medical records, prostheses, medical information systems, health management and care delivery systems.

8. Physics - Median starting salary: $50,700 - Median mid-career salary: $99,600
Most physicists continue to acquire an advanced degree. With a bachelor's degree many work as technicians or research assistants helping to design and troubleshoot equipment. Others work in quality control, inspection, and other production areas.

9. Computer Engineering - Median starting salary: $61,200 - Median mid-career salary: $99,500
There are two main career paths:  hardware and software. Software engineers design and test computer applications while hardware engineers test hardware.

10. Economics - Median starting salary: $48,800 - Median mid-career salary: $97,800
Most find industry-specific work in insurance, business or finance and utilize their high-level quantitative skills. An advanced degree is typically required to perform economic analysis in these fields or for government agencies.

If you have a degree or know of one that you think should be on the list of top ten best paying college degrees, we'd love to hear about it!