Reason #63: One in Five of You Will Work Without Using the Degree

You picked mechanical engineering because it sounded broad. Flexible. The one that keeps your options open. That reputation is the entire sales pitch, and it collapses the moment you compare ME to the other engineering disciplines on any measure that actually matters. See Reason #8.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks labor market outcomes for recent college graduates by major every year, drawing from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The data cover unemployment, underemployment, and median wages for graduates ages 22 to 27, broken out across more than seventy fields of study. Across six years of data, from roughly 2019 through 2024, a pattern holds without exception: among the named engineering disciplines, mechanical engineering pays less and places worse than nearly all of them. Table 1 lays it out. In 2024, ME's early-career median wage was $80,000. Computer engineering paid $90,000. Aerospace and chemical engineering both paid $85,000. Industrial paid $83,000. Electrical paid $82,000. Only civil engineering, at $75,000, paid less. By mid-career the gap widens. Chemical engineering hits $135,000. Computer engineering, $131,000. Aerospace, $130,000. ME sits at $120,000. Still second to last. A chemical engineer earns $15,000 more per year at the same career stage, doing work of comparable difficulty, with a comparable unemployment rate. Over a twenty-year mid-career window, that is $300,000 in lost earnings before you account for compounding.

Table 1. Median Wages by Engineering Major, 2024 (Ages 22-27 and 35-45)

Major	Early Career	Mid-Career	ME Deficit (Mid)
Computer Engineering	$90,000	$131,000	-$11,000
Chemical Engineering	$85,000	$135,000	-$15,000
Aerospace Engineering	$85,000	$130,000	-$10,000
Industrial Engineering	$83,000	$100,000	+$20,000
Electrical Engineering	$82,000	$123,000	-$3,000
Mechanical Engineering	$80,000	$120,000	—
Civil Engineering	$75,000	$115,000	+$5,000

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, February 2026 (2024 ACS data).

The underemployment numbers are worse, and they do not move. Underemployment, in the New York Fed's definition, means working in a job that does not typically require a bachelor's degree. For ME, that rate has hovered between 15.8 and 21.3 percent across every year the Fed has published this data. One in five ME graduates, year after year, ends up in a job that did not need the degree. That is not a blip. It is structural. Table 2 ranks the engineering disciplines by underemployment. In 2024, ME's rate was 20.1 percent. Aerospace was 14.7. Civil was 15.6. Computer engineering was 15.8. Chemical was 17.9. ME was worse than all of them. The only engineering categories with consistently higher underemployment are the vague ones: general engineering, miscellaneous engineering, and engineering technologies. The categories that exist because someone could not or did not specialize.

Table 2. Underemployment Rate by Engineering Major, 2024

Major	Underemployment	Unemployment
Aerospace Engineering	14.7%	2.2%
Civil Engineering	15.6%	2.3%
Computer Engineering	15.8%	7.8%
Chemical Engineering	17.9%	4.7%
Mechanical Engineering	20.1%	4.4%
Electrical Engineering	21.1%	3.2%
General Engineering	31.1%	4.5%
Miscellaneous Engineering	26.4%	3.7%

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, February 2026 (2024 ACS data). Underemployment = share working in jobs that typically do not require a bachelor's degree. Italicized rows are non-specific/catch-all categories.

That last point deserves a second look. The "Swiss Army knife" argument says ME's breadth is an asset. If that were true, you would expect ME graduates to land degree-required jobs at a higher rate than graduates in narrower fields. The data say the opposite. Aerospace engineers study a tighter curriculum and have lower underemployment. Chemical engineers cover fewer domains and get placed more often. The breadth does not help you land a job. It helps employers slot you into whatever opening they cannot fill with someone who actually specialized. You become the fallback candidate, not the first choice. And because this is not a one-year anomaly, Table 3 shows ME's numbers across six consecutive years of ACS data. The numbers shift slightly. The ranking does not.

Table 3. Mechanical Engineering Underemployment, 2019-2024

ACS Year	Underemployment	Unemployment	Early Career	Mid-Career
~2019	21.3%	3.7%	$65,000	$100,000
2020	19.4%	4.4%	$68,000	$104,000
2021	15.8%	5.3%	$70,000	$105,000
2022	20.3%	1.5%	$70,000	$111,000
2023	19.4%	1.5%	$75,000	$115,000
2024	20.1%	4.4%	$80,000	$120,000

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, annual releases 2020-2026. Historical data recovered from Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) snapshots. One in five ME graduates works a job that does not require a bachelor's degree. This has not changed in six years.

The 2021 dip to 15.8 percent was a COVID-era labor shortage. Employers were hiring anyone with a pulse and a degree. It snapped back to 20.3 percent the following year and has stayed there. The wage growth from $65,000 to $80,000 over six years looks like progress until you measure it against inflation. The Consumer Price Index rose roughly 25 percent over the same window. In real terms, ME early-career pay is flat or declining.

Nobody who has this data in front of them picks ME over chemical, electrical, civil, computer, or aerospace engineering. The coursework is comparably difficult. The time to degree is the same. The difference is what happens after. You graduate into a market that pays you less, places you worse, and treats your "versatility" as a discount rather than a premium. The other engineers are not just happier (see Reason #38). They are better compensated for the same years of effort, by every measure the Federal Reserve tracks.

References:

Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (2019-2024). The labor market for recent college graduates. https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market