Colleges with the highest-paid grads

M.I.T.'s campus is also located in Cambridge, Mass.

Starting salary: $70,300
Mid-career salary: $128,800
% who think their job is meaningful: 58%

Google. Apple. Boeing. Microsoft.

Graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the top engineering schools in the country, might be the key to working with one of the most coveted employers in the country. All of these firms, plus hundreds of others, recruit on M.I.T's Cambridge, Mass. campus.

MIT's professors are also some of the best in their fields. That's a plus for undergraduates who can take advantage of the faculty's professional networks when looking for a job, said Payscale economist Katie Bardaro.

Calculator: How much will that college really cost?

First published March 5, 2015: 1:12 PM ET

Source: Source: PayScale.com. Data used in the College Salary Report came from surveys completed by roughly 1.4 million college graduates of 1,002 colleges and universities, which represent 75% of all bachelor's degree recipients in the U.S. Graduates with advanced degrees were excluded from the results. Only full-time, civilian workers based in the 50 states and District of Columbia were counted. The ranking is based on mid-career results, which comes from median salaries of graduates with 10 years of work experience. Whether a job is meaningful is based on the percentage of graduates who answered "Very much so" and "Yes" to the question: "Does your work make the world a better place?"

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