Among all bachelors degree candidates, chemical and petroleum engineering majors received the highest starting salary offers, averaging $39,500 and $38,400, respectively, in 1993. (See appendix table 3-13.) Average starting salary offers in these two fields also exhibited large average annual percentage increases--5.0 and 3.7 percent, respectively, between 1988 and 1993. These gains were higher than those registered by any other field--except nursing, which had a 5.6-percent average annual increase during the same period.

Recent engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, and chemistry bachelors degree recipients receive higher salary offers than graduates in almost every other field. In 1993, starting salary offers exceeded $30,000 in all engineering disciplines (except civil engineering) and in computer science. (Nursing was the only other major with a starting salary above $30,000.) Chemistry, physics, and mathematics were close behind with average starting salary offers of $28,000, $26,800, and $26,500, respectively. The beginning salary offers received by recent undergraduate degree recipients who majored in the biological sciences, psychology, and sociology were considerably lower. In 1993, the figures for these majors were between $20,000 and $23,000.

In general, the rate of increase in starting salary offers slowed after 1990. For example, between 1990 and 1993, beginning salary offers in aerospace/aeronautical engineering increased at an average annual rate of 1.2 percent, far below the 4.1-percent rate registered between 1988 and 1990. Similarly, the average annual rate of increase for civil engineering majors fell from 4.8 percent between 1988 and 1990 to 1.3 percent between 1990 and 1993. In addition, students who majored in the biological sciences, mathematics, physics, and psychology received on average lower salary offers in 1993 than their counterparts received in 1990.

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