Graduates of Reed College earn median 4-year earnings of $44,518, placing Reed College in the 2.6 percentile for median earnings four years after enrollment among nonprofit four-year institutions. Azimuth ranks Reed College #957 for return on investment among nonprofit four-year institutions. The earnings trajectory reflects Reed College's concentration in Social Sciences, a field where graduates typically see steady income growth through the first decade after enrollment. The program lineup spans humanities, social sciences, and applied fields. Political Science is the largest program with 26 graduates, followed by Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services (21 graduates) and Research Psychology (20 graduates). English Language and Literature, General and Mathematics round out the core academic portfolio, each enrolling substantial cohorts. This program distribution — anchored in Social Sciences (22%) and Arts (9%) — shapes the institution's earnings profile and career outcomes across the graduate body.
Graduates of Reed College earn median 4-year earnings of $44,518, placing Reed College in the 2.6 percentile for median earnings four years after enrollment among nonprofit four-year institutions. Azimuth ranks Reed College #957 for return on investment among nonprofit four-year institutions. The earnings trajectory reflects Reed College's concentration in Social Sciences, a field where graduates typically see steady income growth through the first decade after enrollment. The program lineup spans humanities, social sciences, and applied fields. Political Science is the largest program with 26 graduates, followed by Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services (21 graduates) and Research Psychology (20 graduates). English Language and Literature, General and Mathematics round out the core academic portfolio, each enrolling substantial cohorts. This program distribution — anchored in Social Sciences (22%) and Arts (9%) — shapes the institution's earnings profile and career outcomes across the graduate body.
Latest FE earnings field: 10-year
Lower quartile, 10-year field
How graduate earnings grow across the currently available FE horizons.
Financial justification for the investment.
Healthy debt burden. Most graduates can manage $21,500 in debt with typical earnings.
Graduates of Reed College earn median 4-year earnings of $44,518, placing Reed College in the 2.6 percentile for median earnings four years after enrollment among nonprofit four-year institutions. Azimuth ranks Reed College #957 for return on investment among nonprofit four-year institutions. The earnings trajectory reflects Reed College's concentration in Social Sciences, a field where graduates typically see steady income growth through the first decade after enrollment. The program lineup spans humanities, social sciences, and applied fields. Political Science is the largest program with 26 graduates, followed by Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services (21 graduates) and Research Psychology (20 graduates). English Language and Literature, General and Mathematics round out the core academic portfolio, each enrolling substantial cohorts. This program distribution — anchored in Social Sciences (22%) and Arts (9%) — shapes the institution's earnings profile and career outcomes across the graduate body.
Program mix and student pathways explain much of the earnings story.
Reed College's program mix is anchored in the social sciences and humanities — a signature shaped by the institution's liberal arts identity and Portland location. Political Science is the largest program with 26 graduates, followed by Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services, Research Psychology, English Language and Literature, General, and Mathematics. Across 22 programs, the distribution reflects Social Sciences as the dominant family, with Social Sciences at 22%, Arts at 9%, and other STEM fields at 7%. Reed's program portfolio emphasizes breadth over specialization, consistent with a residential liberal arts model where students pursue inquiry across disciplines rather than concentrating in a single vocational track. The largest programs — Political Science, Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services, and Research Psychology — draw substantial cohorts and reflect the institution's strength in foundational social science and humanities inquiry. This concentration in analytical and interpretive fields aligns with Reed's curricular philosophy and the labor-market pathways typical of liberal arts graduates, where early-career earnings often reflect entry-level positions in education, nonprofit work, research, and creative fields before mid-career advancement. Several of Reed's largest programs are grad-school-dependent pathways where four-year earnings undercount lifetime trajectory because a meaningful share of graduates continue to graduate or professional school — particularly in fields like Political Science, Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services, and Research Psychology, where advanced degrees in law, medicine, policy, and doctoral research are common next steps. The supply and demand for college graduates provides context for how liberal arts program families align with longer-term labor-market outcomes and the sectors where Reed graduates tend to concentrate their careers.
Upper quartile, 10-year field
Graduates of Reed College earn median 4-year earnings of $44,518, placing Reed College in the 2.6 percentile for median earnings four years after enrollment among nonprofit four-year institutions. Azimuth ranks Reed College #957 for return on investment among nonprofit four-year institutions. The earnings trajectory reflects Reed College's concentration in Social Sciences, a field where graduates typically see steady income growth through the first decade after enrollment. The program lineup spans humanities, social sciences, and applied fields. Political Science is the largest program with 26 graduates, followed by Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services (21 graduates) and Research Psychology (20 graduates). English Language and Literature, General and Mathematics round out the core academic portfolio, each enrolling substantial cohorts. This program distribution — anchored in Social Sciences (22%) and Arts (9%) — shapes the institution's earnings profile and career outcomes across the graduate body.
See which programs drive the strongest earnings and career trajectories
