Though they’re leaving the Old Folks Home, many 2022s won’t be too far away — over 40 percent will remain in New Jersey or New York next year. As of March 2022, 53 percent had secured a job for after graduation — disproportionately in academia, consulting, and finance — and over a quarter expect to make six figures. Software engineers, Colonial Club members, and students who are not on financial aid are among the groups that on average outearn their counterparts.
An important note: This survey was taken in March 2022, and as such, seniors' job prospects and post-graduation plans may have changed since then.
After graduation, 40.4 percent of seniors who reported salaries will earn over $90,000 and those who did not receive financial aid from the University claim higher expected incomes than their peers on aid. While 69 percent of seniors don’t expect to receive significant financial support from family in the coming year, financial aid recipients are less likely than non-recipients to expect help.
Lucrative concentrations for the Class of 2022 include Computer Science and Math (with average starting salaries of $204.5K and $187.7K, respectively) while those studying Molecular Biology ($41.5K) and Comparative Literature ($29.7K) sit at the bottom. Members of Colonial Club ($172.1K) indicated that they will outearn all other clubs on the street after graduation, while Terrace members ($53.7K) will make the least. Princeton graduates earn far more than the average American college graduate, who may expect to reap approximately $55.3K upon receiving their degree.
A slight majority of respondents (53.5 percent) have a job lined up after graduation. Students not receiving financial aid were far more likely to have a job lined up (61.7 percent) than their aid-receiving peers (49.1 percent) with a similar discrepancy taking hold between B.S.E. students (72.8 percent) and A.B. students (46.9 percent). Of respondents with employment plans, B.S.E.s appear more content with their future: 69.2 percent of engineers reported being “very satisfied” with their postgraduate job compared to only 58.6 percent of A.B. students.
Over 30 percent of seniors are planning a move to New York upon graduation, with the Empire State far outpacing all other destinations. Just seven states account for the future homes of over 70 percent of 2022s — the class will disproportionately disperse to New York, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington. Academia, consulting, and finance stand among the most popular career fields and 30.8 percent of respondents expect to receive significant familial financial support in the year after graduation.