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Salaries for new ag grads up significantly
A new report on starting salaries being paid to recent ag college graduates shows that, overall, they are making five percent more than those who graduated just a year earlier. The report covers students who graduated in winter 2012 or spring 2013.
Mike Gaul, director of career services in the ag college at Iowa State University, says that five percent increase is about double what it has been running annually.
“This is a great time to be a student in this industry –and the opportunities are so diverse,” says Gaul. “Ag is riding a great wave and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Average starting salaries ranged from nearly 51-thousand dollars for ag engineering and industrial technology grads to 31-thousand for those in environmental sciences, fisheries, forestry and wildlife biology.
Gaul says one of the of the biggest increases was for ag education teachers—up nearly 10 percent to an average of 41-thousand dollars.
“Which to me is fantastic to see,” he says, “because at the end of the day, when you think about careers out there—noble professions—boy, oh boy, ag ed is key to our industry there. Especially at the high school level because that’s our feeder system for all our future students throughout agriculture.”
Gaul says the demand for agronomy and crop sciences grads is also very strong, with starting salaries averaging nearly 45-thousand dollars.
The data was compiled and released by Iowa State University, but 16 agricultural colleges contributed to the data set.
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