Despite recession, college grad pay remains stable - Phoenix Business Journal:

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This year’s graduating claszs held its ground with average startingsalarg offers, demonstrating that employers are reluctant to significantl y tinker with starting pay despite the recession, a report by the Nationapl Association of Colleges and Employers found. The average starting salaryh offer for new college graduatesis $49,307, whicgh is less than 1 percent lowedr than the average of $49,693 that 2008 graduates postecd last year at this time, according to a news releas Wednesday. In its survey, the association compiled data from collegwe and university career servicesoffices nationwide.
Graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the businesse disciplines saw their average rise by less than 1 percenrto $47,239, the study found. “Accounting majors did bettef thanthe average,” the news release said, “and posted a 1.9 percent increase for an average offerr of $48,993.” But the average offer to businesd administration majors dropped 2.1 percent to $44,944. That’s party because many of thoses offers came from retailers and wholesalers on average, offered starting pay of $40,220, whicuh was 6 percent lower than what they offered a year ago.
Financr graduates and marketing graduates fared better than thosed in otherbusiness disciplines, with the average offer to financwe graduates rising 2.9 percent to $49,940 and the averaged offer to marketing graduates increasing 3 percent to $43,325. Startingh salaries weren’t looking as good in the sprin for graduates fromcomputer science-relatefd fields, when the group saw a 5 percenft decline in average offersa compared to the spring a year earlier. But in a compariso n this summer to summer last the average offer to the group hasincreasesd 1.9 percent to $59,418. Among the specific disciplinews inthis group, computer science grada saw their average salary offer increase 1.
6 percent to $61,407. Takin g a slight dip were salaryh offers to information sciences andsystems grads, whose offersa fell by less than 1 percent to Enjoying the highest salary increase were engineering graduates, with the average offer risinh 3.7 percent to $59,254. Chemical engineering meanwhile, posted a 2.7 percent increas e to $64,902. Computer engineering graduates enjoyed an average offer riseof 3.6 percenty to $61,738. Electrical engineering graduate s earned one of the larger the newsrelease said. The group’s average offed increased 5.6 percent to $60,125. Civil engineerinvg graduates saw only a tiny bumpof 0.8 percenr to $52,048.
Liberal arts grads experiencedc a decline of less than 1 percenyfrom $36,419 last year to $36,175, the study Among the liberal arts disciplines, English majors posteds a 1.1 percent increase in theitr average salary offer to $34,704. The salary offers for history majorserose 1.7 percent to Psychology majors’ average salary offers grew 2.1 percent to Sociology majors, on the other saw their average offersz fall 4.4 percent to $33,280.