- Agricultural Managers
- Managers (specialized areas)
- Agricultural and food scientists
- Grounds maintenance workers
- Postsecondary teachers
- First-line supervisors of landscaping, lawn service, and groundskeeping workers
- First-line supervisors of retail sales workers
- Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives
- Agricultural workers (specialized areas)
- First-line supervisors of non-retail sales workers
Does getting a bachelor's degree in plant science and agronomy lead to a secure job? The donut chart shows the percentage plant science and agronomy majors who are working along with a broad view of where they work. We note:
- Self-employed workers include those working in a family-owned business.
- Government workers can be in local, state or federal governments.
Technically, about 17.1% of plant science and agronomy graduates are currently not working. However, only 2.4% are classified as "unemployed," while 14.7% are "not in the workforce." Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing whether people are out of the workforce for personal reasons or because they have been unable to find work for an extended period.
This chart lets you see whether plant science and agronomy majors have better unemployment rates than bachelor's graduates from other fields. In the shaded box plot, the percentage of unemployed with this degree is shown in blue, along with the distribution of the percentage of unemployed graduates for each bachelor's degree field.
How does the median (middle) salary for plant science and agronomy majors compare to the median salaries for other majors? The chart below compares the median salaries for all bachelor's graduates by major. Here and everywhere that we discuss salary, we limit the population to those with bachelor's degrees who report working at least 35 hours a week and are aged 65 and younger.
Above we compared the median salaries earned across college majors. Now we'll view the full salary range for plant science and agronomy majors. The charts below show the full distribution of salaries for this degree alone, with a look at how the type of employer might affect that salary. This salary includes all people who may also have received graduate education in this or any field. You can tease out the importance of graduate education in the last tab in the section.
Note that we do not include salary data when the survey standard error is higher than 20% of the salary. Therefore, some categories may be missing or may only provide partial salary ranges. To provide salary breakdowns, we have aggregated ACS person-level career survey responses by career, gender, race, age, and other factors. These graphics reflect the results of our aggregations, and are useful for identifying trends. A careful statistical study of the impact of these characteristics on salaries would correct for other factors that could be contributing to salary differences.
The donut chart shows the gender balance for all people with a bachelor's degree in plant science and agronomy. In the graphs that follow, we'll explore how these percentages compare to other bachelor's holders, and we'll also investigate the impact of gender on pay.
How does the gender balance change according to college major? In the chart below, we see that plant science and agronomy has more men than most other degrees.
The chart below shows the distribution of salaries by gender of plant science and agronomy majors who are working 35 or more hours and are 65 or younger. If salaries are balanced for men and women, the blue and pink bars will be about the same. Many programs' graduates struggle with men's wages higher at all points of the salary distribution, including significantly higher top salaries.
For plant science and agronomy graduates, men generally earn 33% more than women. This is high: 70% of programs have graduates with lower salary inequities.
The ages of people in the US with a bachelor's degree in plant science and agronomy can give us a hint about whether this degree is in-fashion or out-of-fashion. A higher percentage of older people with a degree suggests that newer degree options have edged out this degree for recent graduates. Likewise, a higher percentage of younger people with a degree may suggest that this degree has become more popular in recent years.
What entry-level pay should you expect in your first job, and is the mid-level pay significantly higher? Below we see salary distributions by age group for plant science and agronomy graduates who are working 35 or more hours weekly. Is there room for advancement in careers that stem from this degree?
Note that we do not include salary data when the survey standard error is higher than 20% of the salary. Therefore, some categories may be missing or may only provide partial salary ranges. To provide salary breakdowns, we have aggregated ACS person-level career survey responses by career, gender, race, age, and other factors. These graphics reflect the results of our aggregations, and are useful for identifying trends. A careful statistical study of the impact of these characteristics on salaries would correct for other factors that could be contributing to salary differences.
Can plant science and agronomy majors earn a high salary without obtaining a graduate degree? Below, we dive into the prevalence of graduate degrees for plant science and agronomy majors, and we explore how much a graduate degree can be expected to increase salaries. Among all international agriculture completions reported last year, 96% were at the bachelor's level or higher, including 41% at the graduate level.
The donut shows the degree levels awarded in international agriculture today. Now we'll use American Community Survey (ACS) data and look at all workers in the US who majored in plant science and agronomy when in college.
We know that about 26% plant science and agronomy majors chose to also earn a graduate degree (but we do not know the graduate field of study). The percentage of plant science and agronomy majors also earned a graduate degree is near the middle in comparison to other fields.
We saw above that 26% earned a graduate degree after earning a bachelor's in plant science and agronomy, but was this necessary for earning a good salary? We can see this answer in two ways. First, we can see the salary distribution for people with a bachelor's in plant science and agronomy by their highest education attained. Remember, we only know the field for the bachelor's degree; the graduate degree can be in any field.
Note that we do not include salary data when the survey standard error is higher than 20% of the salary. Therefore, some categories may be missing or may only provide partial salary ranges. To provide salary breakdowns, we have aggregated ACS person-level career survey responses by career, gender, race, age, and other factors. These graphics reflect the results of our aggregations, and are useful for identifying trends. A careful statistical study of the impact of these characteristics on salaries would correct for other factors that could be contributing to salary differences.
The second way that we can explore the impact of higher education on salary is to compare median salaries for workers with each level of education. We measure the percentage increase over the bachelor's salary that each higher degree achieved, and contrast that with similar measurements for other fields.
Sure, we think a higher degree would almost always help salary, but are there some majors that "need" a higher degree (in either the same or a new field) more than others in order to reach their earnings potential?
As we explained at the start of the previous section "Salary and Employment for Majors", the career data in all of these tabs is supported by the American Community Survey (ACS), which provides career information based on the broad degree plant science and agronomy. For of the career statistics we report here, we consider all bachelor-holders in international agriculture and 13 other programs to fall under the ACS data we aggregated for the plant science and agronomy degree.
Here we look at ACS survey respondents across the US with a bachelor's degree in plant science and agronomy, and we see their top careers. You can explore the salary distributions for all people in those careers, as well as the typical education help by workers in that job. If you see ** before the job name, that tells you that the Department of Education recommends this job for people with a degree in international agriculture. We did not find always find a strong correlation between that advice and where people were working.
Take a minute with this sankey diagram, and use your mouse/touch to explore. You can follow the top ten jobs held by plant science and agronomy graduates, and then, in turn, you can see the largest 10 degrees hired by each of those careers. We hope this gives you a glimpse at where you can most realistically hope to get a job with this degree, but also see alternatives for the same employment options. It's worth noting that for many degrees, the top ten jobs don't account for even half of the graduates. The data warns us / encourages us that a degree is only one piece of the puzzle that determines where we land.
What jobs are especially seeking you out? The previous section let you explore the top ten jobs for people who earn bachelor's degrees in this field. Now we turn the tables a bit. What jobs have plant science and agronomy as one of the top ten majors they hire? Take this with a grain of salt, though, since some majors have more than 100,000 annual graduates and others have only a few thousand. Maybe employers would hire more of certain low-number majors if they could be found. In the bottom Sankey box, we show you the proportion of plant science and agronomy majors that are accounted for by the top 10 jobs -- there are a myriad of other options for most majors.
International Agriculture is part of a larger collection of programs: Agriculture. Is there a different program that's close to International Agriculture that might be a better match for your interests? You can use this table to see a little about the programs that fall under this umbrella. If you click on any of the table headers, that will sort the table by that column, or click on a row and see Ididio's profile for that program.
