This spring, somewhere around 3 million young adults will graduate from universities in America. They’re all going to need jobs.
In a time of high college cost, many students are desperate to earn back their tuition—or at least pay off their loan debt—as quickly as possible. Career platform LinkedIn today published a new report, using an analysis of thousands of profiles of young workers on its site, listing the most lucrative jobs for college graduates.
The top of the list harbors no surprises. Banks and other financial institutions have long offered six-figure salaries (or close to it) to lure in a steady supply of energetic college grads, and rich Silicon Valley companies and older manufacturing corporations are eager to pay a premium for engineering talent. Some other positions on the list may cause some head-scratching, however—for instance, the $75,000 starting salary offered to pharmaceutical sales representatives, or the $70,000 that you can make as a physical therapist.
On that last: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physical therapy employment is expected to grow by 34% from 2014 to 2024, a rate that is “much faster than the average for all occupations.” Why? The bureau notes that the US’s aging baby boomers will soon need a lot of people to care for them. If you’re about to graduate, that could be you.
Also, there are only 600 of those chart-topping i-banking analyst jobs to go around—almost 87 times fewer than in physical therapy.
Keep in mind that LinkedIn’s data only features salaries for entry-level roles. If you’re interested in the jobs with the highest compensation overall, your best bet is still a rigorous career in medicine.