College Class of 2009 Sees Lower Starting Salary Offers

Starting salary offers to the college Class of 2009 have fallen slightly compared to offers received by the Class of 2008, according to new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
According to the Spring 2009 issue of NACE’s Salary Survey report, the overall average offer to a 2009 bachelor’s degree graduate stands at $48,515–down 2.2 percent from the average of $49,624 posted in Spring 2008.

“This report illustrates the effects the recession is having on the job market for new college graduates. The decrease in average offer is one sign that demand is down,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
There are other signs that the recession has hit the new college graduate job market.
“More disciplines are seeing their starting salary average fall compared to last year at this time. In our current report, 42 percent of the disciplines that experienced a change in their starting salary average saw that average decrease. In comparison, last year at this time, that number was just 14 percent,” says Mackes.
The engineering disciplines fared best, as a group, posting a 2.3 percent increase in their overall average offer, which now stands at $58,438. By specific engineering discipline, chemical engineering graduates posted the largest increase among the engineering fields. Their average offer rose 2.8 percent to $65,403.
Computer engineering graduates posted a 1.8 percent increase, pushing their average salary offer to $61,017. Experiencing similar increases were civil engineering grads (up 1.7 percent for an average of $51,793) and mechanical engineering graduates (up 1.6 percent for an average of $58,749).
Computer science majors didn’t fare as well, losing 3.6 percent off their average, bringing their current starting salary offer to $57,693. One reason for the tumble: There were fewer offers for software design and development positions reported in Spring 2009 than in Spring 2008, and the average offer to computer science grads for these positions fell 11 percent from $65,379 in Spring 2008 to $58,837 currently.
The business disciplines appear to be holding their own; as a group, their average offer rose 1 percent to $46,973, and some of the individual disciplines saw modest increases in their average salary offers. For example, the average salary offer to those earning degrees in accounting rose 2 percent to $48,377, while finance graduates saw their average offer rise 2.3 percent to $49,754. Business administration/management graduates fared well in comparison, posting a 3.6 percent increase for an average offer of $45,778.
Data are limited at this time, as liberal arts graduates tend to get job offers later in the year, but show that activity for liberal arts graduates as a group remains relatively flat. In Winter 2009, liberal arts graduates saw their average offer fall 1 percent compared to Winter 2008. In this report, their average offer rose 1 percent over Spring 2008 to $36,807.