The highest-earning college major on Wall Street is not what you would expect

Advertisement

child graduation

Kin Cheung/AP

Advertisement

You might have a guess which college major is most common among Wall Street professionals.

But do you know which majors end up earning the most money?

Business Insider asked Emolument - a salary-benchmarking website that collects self-reported pay data - which college majors are the most lucrative on Wall Street.

They gathered data on 840 finance professionals in New York at the analyst, associate, vice-president, and director level.

Advertisement

Respondents come from a number of firms, including Citigroup, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as well as smaller banks, asset managers, and hedge funds. They are all front-office professionals, and two-thirds work at banks, while one-third works on the buy side.

The results vary depending on whether you look at entry-level or senior positions, but one thing's clear: The highest earners are not the finance majors.

Here's what we found: