Technology is always growing in fields like gas, chemical and power, and engineers often drive the latest advancements. The median starting salary for a petroleum engineer, for example, starts at $93,000 per year, according to the Education Portal. Other profitable engineering college degrees are aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, nuclear engineering, biomedical engineering and computer engineering. Engineering majors and degrees in general have stayed at the top of the highest paid and most profitable college degree lists for some time.
Mathematics is not just a subject you take in school for a degree -- it is a degree. Areas that people with mathematics degrees can enter into include digital imaging, finance, environmental science, data mining and bioinformatics. The average median salary per year according to Education Portal for someone with a mathematics college degree is $56,000 and the mid-career median salary is more than $100,000.
Those who wish to have careers requiring a physics education will need to earn a doctorate or master's degree to be profitable. Individuals with a physics degree can enter into fields such as research, design, quality control and inspection. The average median starting salary for an individual with a physics degree is $50,000, with the mid-career salary jumping up to $99,000 according to Education Portal.
Economics is a mixed college degree that's often misunderstood. An economics degree focuses on finances and statistics, but also psychology, political science and history. Those holding economics degrees have the ability to take on positions that give them opportunities to travel to other countries or work for organizations such as the U.S. Embassy. Individuals with economics degrees earn starting median salaries of $50,000, with mid-career salaries jumping up to $100,000 according to Money College and PayScale.