Year 12s graduating in 2025 are staring down their preferences list and wondering if uni is still worth signing up for. Between cooked rents, fee hikes and empty lecture theatres, the old promise of “do a degree, get a good job, live happily ever after” feels pretty broken.
Just 27 per cent of Australians now think a degree is “very valuable”, according to a Deakin University study released in September this year, while 76 per cent say they’re too expensive. It marks a major vibe shift from when HECS debt was just background noise, and newly released data on graduate pay says young people are right to be worried.
It begs the question: is a university degree still worth it?
What’s going on with grad pay?
Surprisingly, on average, starting salaries haven’t collapsed. Government data from the Graduate Outcomes Survey shows median full‑time pay for new bachelor grads has actually crept up a bit in real terms over the past decade, sitting in the low‑$70,000s in the first year out. So the typical grad isn’t earning dramatically less than ten years ago – it just feels worse because the cost of everything from groceries to rent has sprinted off into the distance.
Once you slice it by degree, though, things get spicier. Analysis of federal data shows some of the traditional “safe” choices – law, banking and finance, computer science, medicine and mechanical engineering – have seen their real starting salaries stall or dip slightly. Monash higher‑education expert Andrew Norton has flagged broad, generalist degrees as “relatively high‑risk options”.
“My concern would be a generic business degree, or generic arts degree, generic science degree, are potentially relatively high-risk options,” he told the Australian Financial Review.
I think Andrew and my mum are in cahoots ‘cos she said the exact same thing to me when I chose my degrees.
Top-earning degrees (and what they actually pay)
If you’re trying to work out which degrees are still doing some heavy financial lifting, here’s a rundown of typical median starting salaries for full‑time grads, based on 2024 national survey data by QILT.
- Dentistry – about $103,300 a year, sitting at the very top of the graduate pay pile.
- Medicine – roughly $87,00 in the early grad period.
- Engineering (process and resources) – about $84,500.
- Social work – around $82,000, making it one of the better‑paid caring professions at entry level.
- Building and construction – $81,600.
- Teaching (primary and secondary) – about $80,000, which now puts many new teachers slightly ahead of first‑year lawyers on pay.
- Occupational therapy – around $75,300, still solid even with all the AI panic.
- Psychology – roughly $75,300, often as a launchpad into further training rather than a final stop.
- Rehabilitation and allied health – about $75,000, plus very strong chances of full‑time work.
- Architecture and built environment – also around $75,000 as a starting point.
- Law and paralegal studies – roughly $73,300, with lower entry‑level pay than teaching but stronger long‑term earnings potential.
Degrees earning the least straight out of uni:
At the other end of the ladder, these are the degrees earning the least straight out of uni.
- Pharmacy – about $59,500, the lowest median starting salary despite high full‑time employment rates.
- Art and design – around $62,600, with some of the weakest full‑time job outcomes to match.
- Tourism, hospitality, personal services, sport and recreation – roughly $65,100.
- Communications, media and journalism – about $65,500, with a lot of casual, contract and patchy work in the mix.
- Veterinary science – around $70,000, even though some specialisations have seen decent real‑term increases over time.
- Agriculture and environmental studies – roughly $72,000.
- Business management – about $72,000.
- Nursing – around $72,000 at entry, despite the shifts and stress levels.
- Science and mathematics – about $72,400.
- Humanities, culture and social sciences – roughly $73,100, sitting just above that broad mid‑tier cluster.
When the “degree premium” runs into debt
When looking at which degree to choose, you can also look at how much debt you’ll be entering the workforce in. Fun!
Analysis from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre showed the average student loan climbing from about $8500 in 2005 to around $27,650 in 2024 – a rise of more than 225 per cent.
At the same time, degrees just aren’t rare anymore: census data shows people with a bachelor degree or higher jumped from just under 4.2 million (17.5 per cent of the population) in 2016 to 5.5 million (21 per cent) by 2021.
So, Norton has questioned government ambitions to drive that share even higher, given “a lot of people who’ve got degrees” are already in jobs that don’t genuinely require one, which chips away at the financial premium.
“I think there are a lot of people who’ve got degrees who are working in jobs that they probably could have got with a year 12 qualification or some TAFE qualification, and therefore the premium for them is not there,” he said.
So what do you actually do with this?
If you’re trying to lock in 2026 preferences without accidentally speed‑running a quarter‑life crisis, the answer isn’t ‘never go to uni again’, it’s ‘go in with brutal clarity’.
On average, a degree still improves your chances of full‑time work — about 79 per cent of recent grads landed full‑time jobs within six months in 2023, slipping to 74 per cent in 2024 but still above pre‑COVID levels — and generally means higher earnings than not studying.
But the old “any degree is good debt” slogan is dead and buried. Right now, the numbers say health (especially medicine and allied health), engineering, teaching, accounting, banking and some corners of law and business give you the best mix of pay and job odds, while broad, expensive degrees with weaker outcomes are edging into luxury‑purchase territory.
Chasing what you love is still valid — it just has to share a table with what it costs, what it pays, and whether you’re okay with those maths in a world where everything else is already stupidly expensive.
Don’t worry, I too am questioning all of my life choices at this very moment.
Lead image: High School Musical 3
The post Is Uni Still Worth It? Here Are The Top‑Earning Degrees In Australia Right Now appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
