5 Top Paying Careers for College Graduates

5 Top Paying Careers for College Graduates

Want a great job with a high-paying salary and plenty of room for advancement? Not only can you pursue a career you’ll enjoy, but you can start working on your career path right from home. Live comfortably and love what you do by pursuing one of these five top career paths.

Quick Read:
If you’re looking for a high paying career, consider one of these. Computer programming, nursing, business administration, financial advising and marketing are among the top 5 high paying careers that require a college education. You can learn more about each one by reading the full article below.

Read on to See Which High Paying Career Interests You

Computer Programming

Want to spend your life developing software, making video games, or working on the latest and greatest apps for mobile devices? Computer programming can help you get there. It’s also remarkably easy to learn from home through self-directed programs – some of which may even be free!

Salary-wise, there’s plenty of wiggle room here to make a good living depending on which offshoot of the industry you choose. Payscale.com reports a median of about $60,000, but advanced programmers working on bleeding-edge projects anticipate up to $120,000 yearly or more.

Don’t like the idea of working for someone else? Go freelance or design your own popular software and you just might hit it big like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.

Registered Nurse (RN)

Love the thought of a joyful yet challenging career that lets you give back without suffering from starving artist syndrome? RNs serve the public in a critically important healthcare role; without them, our hospitals and clinics just wouldn’t be the same.

Nursing is a fairly well-salaried, high-security, growth-influenced career; you can expect to make an average of around $65,000 per year to start. In high-paying states like California, that number shoots up to almost $100,000.

There’s an assumption that you need to spend four long years attending university (in person) to become an RN, but that’s no longer true. A long list of accredited universities and schools now offer distance education programs that let you master everything you can possibly learn without hands-on experience, including theory, fundamentals, and most academics.

Once it’s time for practicum, internship, or examinations, schools link you up with healthcare facilities in your area to get the job done. These network partnerships significantly increase your chances of being hired immediately after you graduate, ensuring you aren’t left without work.

Business Administration

Business administration is the generalist or jack-of-all-trades degree for someone who can’t decide (or prefers not to decide) on a specific business-related path. Programs first teach the basics of business, including management, finance, recruiting, marketing, and strategies for success. By the time you graduate, you’re well-equipped to run your own business or help someone else run theirs.

How much you make from your business administration degree really depends on which avenue of business you branch out into. Sales management staff have a projected income of $117,960, while financial management nets you around $121,750. Even healthcare management pays around a respectable $83,000 per year.

If you decide to open your own business instead, the sky’s the limit. Your own motivation and dedication is the only thing holding you back from making millions with the right idea at your side.

Financial Advisor

Love all things numbers? You can help people live better lives by becoming a financial advisor. Financial advisors empower people or businesses to make better use of their money through planning, debt management, and growth strategies. The advisor may have complete control over someone’s money, making decisions for them, or may work one-on-one with someone to identify the best monetary opportunities as the market flexes and changes.

This is also a really easy career to learn right at home. Because most financial knowledge is based on math and theory, much of the program is academics and putting what you’ve learned into practice with your own finances. This has the added bonus of ensuring you graduate financially better off yourself!

How much you make in this money-driven career really depends on what avenue you decide to take, but you can expect to make a median salary of approximately $90,000. In some commission-based jobs, you have the potential to make a great deal more.

Marketing

The entire business world runs on marketing. Without it, businesses would be completely unable to market their products and services, much less attract clients in the first place. This expansive career is yet another with a multitude of possible career paths available to you upon graduation.

Venture into digital marketing, market research, industry analysis, traditional marketing, or start your own agency and help businesses achieve their own marketing and sales goals. There are so many options; it’s up to you to pick which fits your skill set best.

Marketing is so diverse it can be a bit difficult to pin down an exact salary for the industry. Most resources reflect that Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is the best-paying position, with a salary range of  $80,000 to $250,000 per year, while Vice President of Marketing comes in at a close second making between $80,000 to $190,000 instead. Even standard product marketing managers come in nicely with $50,000 to $120,000 per year.

Can you learn marketing from home? Absolutely! In fact, studying marketing and going into digital marketing is a great way to expand your income at home before you even graduate.

Feeling excited? It’s easy to get motivated when the future’s bright. You don’t need to quit your job or even take out a loan for expensive universities – you can start studying right now from the comfort of home. If you’re a self-directed person with great work ethic, this is one of the best ways to move forward.