6.2 percent
The percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded in psychology out of the total 1.84 million bachelor’s degrees granted during the 2012–13 year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That makes psychology the fourth most popular major in the United States, after business, health professions and related programs, and social science and history.
$49,000
The median annual salary for workers ages 25 to 59 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, according to a 2015 analysis from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. That is $12,000 less than the median annual salary for workers with a bachelor’s degree in any field, which is $61,000. Some subfields of psychology earn more: Industrial/organizational psychology majors earn $66,000 and social psychology majors earn $51,000.
26.7 percent
The percentage of recent graduates with bachelor’s degrees in psychology who work in jobs “closely related” to their major, according to an APA Center for Workforce Studies analysis of 2013 data from the National Science Foundation’s National Survey of College Graduates. The survey also found that 35.1 percent said their job was “somewhat related” to their major and 38.2 percent said it was “not related.”
45.3 percent
The percentage of undergraduate psychology majors who go on to earn a graduate degree, according to the Georgetown analysis. Overall, 35.1 percent of college graduates go on to earn a graduate degree.
33 percent
The percentage more that psychology majors with graduate degrees earn, on average, compared with psychology majors with only a bachelor’s degree, according to the Georgetown analysis.