Statistics at Cornell University

Cornell's statistics bachelor's puts graduates at $82,531 in first-year earnings—38% above the national median for statistics programs and matching the state median among New York schools. Based on similar programs at Cornell, debt runs around $16,875, creating a debt-to-earnings ratio of just 0.20. That's an exceptionally strong financial position: graduates would need less than three months of their first-year salary to cover their debt, well below both the national statistics debt burden of $20,150 and certainly below what most college programs produce.

The catch is context. Cornell's 8% admission rate and 1520 average SAT mean this program draws from an extraordinarily selective pool. Whether the strong outcomes reflect Cornell's training or the caliber of students who gain admission is impossible to tease apart. What's clear is that statistics as a field delivers solid employment outcomes across the board—the national median of nearly $60,000 represents genuine earning power for a bachelor's degree—but Cornell graduates are clustering at the top of that distribution.

For families who can afford Cornell's price tag without accumulating significantly more than $17,000 in debt, the math works strongly in your favor. The immediate earnings justify the modest debt load, and statistics skills translate directly into high-demand roles in tech, finance, and analytics. If you're facing substantially higher debt to attend, though, remember that strong statistics programs exist at less selective (and less expensive) institutions where outcomes still far exceed typical bachelor's degrees.