New College Grads Expect to Make $100,000 A Year, Is This A Joke?

Recent college graduates are in for quite a shock when they get their first jobs.

If you spent years and thousands of dollars going to college and actually graduated, you already know that heading into the "real" world can be terrifying!! It can also be a huge letdown when you are expecting a starting salary that is nowhere near what most companies are paying.

According to NBC New York, current college students were asked how much they think their starting salary would be once they entered the workforce. Students that are currently pursuing a bachelor's degree are expecting to make around $103,000 a year in their first job once they graduate! Expecting and what's actually going to happen are two very different things as the average starting salary for the Class of 2022 is projected to be more than $50,000 according to NBC.

Good News/Bad News

The good news for graduates is that the hiring demand is going to be higher this year than it was last year. The bad news is that graduates are setting themselves up with unreasonable expectations by overestimating their starting salaries by 88%.

What Field has the Highest Starting Salaries?

Obviously, the field that a graduate has selected to enter will have a lot to do with how much they are paid each year with computer sciences majors being the most likely to be the highest-paid just out of college, earning around $75,000 a year. If you are about to graduate or have a kid that will graduate soon, it might be a good idea to have a conversation about starting salaries so they aren't disappointed when they get a job offer.

How Much Did Your First Job Pay?

I know when I finished school I had no idea of how much a radio job even paid, I just couldn't wait to do it! I was unhappily surprised when I was told that radio pays close to nothing in the beginning and after 25+ years, it still doesn't come close to what new graduates are expecting...LOL! When you finished school did you have an idea of what your salary would be once you got a job in your chosen field? Was it higher or lower than you expected? Let us know by calling or texting us through the station app.