UT System Updates SeekUT Website With Salary, Debt Data
This week the UT System relaunched its SeekUT website, a free online tool that displays median salary and debt data for graduates of universities in the UT system.
On the site, which was first launched in January, anyone can view salary and student loan statistics for graduates of UT institutions. Branded as a tool to help students make informed decisions about academic and career choices, SeekUT is searchable by institution, industry, region, and degree program. The biggest new feature with the relaunch is the addition of graduate school data; previously only undergraduate numbers were included. Other changes will help users get a longer-term perspective, says Stephanie Bond Huie, the UT System vice chancellor for strategic initiatives who led the project.
“When we initially launched the tool we only had five years of data,” Huie says. “But now we have 10 graduating classes included. We can track their wages all the way to 2013.” Another change: After student testers asked for monthly salary and loan payment numbers as opposed to annual data, Huie’s team added that feature.
Not many students seem to be using SeekUT yet; the site gets about 100 visitors per day. According to Huie, the UT System is working with student governments and academic advisors across campuses to get the word out.
One limitation of the site is that it only shows data for graduates who have stayed in Texas to work (since all wage data comes from the Texas Workforce Commission). “We’d love to add data for graduates working outside Texas, and that’s part of why we’re having conversations at the national level now,” she says. Huie and her team are in Washington, D.C., this week to publicize SeekUT and collaborate with government and education leaders.
UT-Austin student government president Kori Rady said that while he hasn’t used SeekUT and SG has no plans to promote it, he has generally positive impressions of the site. “I think it sounds like an awesome tool,” Rady says. “I’m in favor of anything that allows people to become more familiar with the university.”
Below, see some SeekUT salary data for UT-Austin grads working in Texas—and explore the site for yourself here.
- The undergraduate major with the highest first-year median earnings by far is petroleum engineering ($103,756). Chemical engineering comes in second ($75,530) and business is third ($70,376).
- The majors with the lowest first-year median earnings are music performance ($28,964) and theater and dance ($29,032). By the fifth year of employment, those median salaries rise to $39,119 and $44,639, respectively.
- Among some of the most popular liberal arts and communication majors, the median first-year earnings are as follows: English, $36,033; journalism, $34,213; public relations, $38,096; history, $38,039; psychology, $34,119.
- In the sciences, first-year median earnings range from $29,924 (zoology/animal biology) to $67,840 (geology).
Photo by Sandy Carson.
