Applied Mathematics at University of Nevada-Las Vegas

Looking at national benchmarks for applied mathematics bachelor's programs, the typical graduate earns around $61,000 in their first year and carries $21,000 in debt—roughly what similar programs at UNLV likely produce. That puts the debt load at about four months of salary, a manageable ratio that suggests the investment pencils out reasonably well. Applied math graduates generally have strong quantitative skills that translate across industries from tech to finance to analytics, which helps explain the solid starting salaries.

The challenge here is we're working entirely with estimates since UNLV's program doesn't have enough graduates for the Department of Education to report actual outcomes. This could mean the program is small and specialized, or simply new. Either way, you're comparing your child's prospects against what happens at other applied math programs nationally rather than seeing how UNLV's specific graduates fare. At a school with a 96% acceptance rate and average SAT around 1090, the student body differs from many peer institutions offering this degree.

Given the solid national earnings for applied math graduates and the reasonable debt load, the fundamentals look sound. But verify that UNLV's program has the faculty depth, internship connections, and course offerings your child needs—the absence of actual graduate data means you'll need to do more homework on program quality than the numbers alone can tell you.