Biology at Molloy University

A $26,561 starting salary—roughly $6,000 below New York's median for biology graduates—puts Molloy's program in the bottom quarter statewide. For context, CUNY Medgar Evers College, a public institution serving a much higher proportion of low-income students, delivers outcomes 50% higher. Even comparing to the national biology median of $32,316, Molloy trails by nearly $6,000. The debt load of $27,000 is actually typical for biology programs, but paired with these earnings, it creates a 1.02 debt-to-income ratio that means graduates spend their entire first year's salary just to cover what they borrowed.

The small sample size here matters—we're looking at fewer than 30 graduates, so one or two outliers could skew results significantly. That said, the consistency across metrics (18th percentile nationally, 25th in New York) suggests a pattern rather than statistical noise. Biology degrees often serve as stepping stones to graduate programs in health fields, where earnings eventually justify the investment. But if your child plans to enter the workforce directly after graduation, or needs those first-year earnings to service debt while applying to med or grad school, this trajectory creates real financial pressure that many other New York programs—including less selective ones—manage to avoid.