English Language and Literature at Fairfield University

That striking 120% earnings jump from year one to year four tells you everything about Fairfield's English program—it's designed for students who need time to find their professional footing. The $27,206 first-year median is genuinely low, but by year four, graduates reach nearly $60,000, which would place this program well above Connecticut's median if sustained. The small sample size (under 30 graduates) makes these numbers less reliable, but the pattern suggests graduates are landing in careers that value the liberal arts education over time.

The debt picture is actually one of the program's strengths. At $27,000, it's below both national and Connecticut medians for English majors, and that near 1:1 debt-to-first-year-earnings ratio becomes much more manageable once those later earnings kick in. Among Connecticut's English programs, this sits squarely in the middle of the pack—not competing with Yale's outcomes, but reasonable for a selective private university where just 7% of students receive Pell grants.

The real question is whether your family can absorb that difficult first year financially. If your child can live at home initially or has family support to bridge that gap, the trajectory looks promising. But if they need immediate earning power to service loans, this program's delayed payoff could create real strain. The upward trend matters more than the starting point here, assuming these small-sample numbers hold up across larger cohorts.