Where governments publish graduate earnings by course
The countries whose governments match graduate records to tax or social-insurance records and publish earnings by subject — and the countries where no such dataset was found at all.
This is the single best thing you can read about a degree, and Chapter 7 explains why it beats everything else available. It is not a survey and not a salary website: it is the tax authority's own record of what people who took that course went on to earn.
| Country | Dataset | Publisher | What is matched | Detail | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Longitudinal Education Outcomes | Education department with the tax and welfare authorities | Education records against tax records | Subject and institution | yes |
| United States | College Scorecard, field-of-study data | Education department with the federal tax authority | Student-aid records against tax filings | Field and institution, for students who took federal aid | yes |
| Canada | Education and labour market longitudinal platform | National statistics agency | Post-secondary records against tax files | Field, credential and province | yes |
| France | Graduate insertion statistics | Higher-education ministry statistical service | Student records against employer social declarations | Subject and institution | yes |
| Chile | Futuro Laboral | Higher-education undersecretariat with the tax service | Graduate records against tax declarations, whole population | Around 264 courses, by institution | yes |
| Colombia | Labour observatory for education | National education ministry | Graduate records against social-security contributions | Field and level | yes |
| Netherlands | Register-based education outcomes | National statistics office, for the education ministry | Education records against population and income registers | Field of study, and higher vocational against university | yes |
| Ireland | Higher education outcomes | National statistics office with the higher education authority | Graduate records against tax and benefit records | Field, institution, qualification level | yes |
| New Zealand | Integrated data infrastructure publications | Tertiary education commission, on the national statistics infrastructure | Tertiary records against tax-year income | Subject and level, at one, three, five, seven and nine years | yes |
| Poland | Graduate economic outcomes | Government research institute, for the science ministry | Higher education records against social insurance records | Institution and individual programme | yes |
| Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland | National register systems | The four national statistics offices | Education records against income and employer-declaration registers | Field; Denmark also publishes median pay by programme | yes |
Markets where none was found
This is a statement about the search, not proof that nothing exists. Where there is a nearest equivalent, it is named — and it is usually much weaker.
| Country | Nearest thing to it |
|---|---|
| India | Institution-reported placement medians and an enrolment census. Both are self-reported by the institution being judged. |
| Nigeria | Nothing comparable found. |
| Pakistan | Nothing comparable found. |
| Bangladesh | Nothing comparable found. |
| Indonesia | Nothing comparable found. |
| Vietnam | Nothing comparable found. |
| Philippines | Nothing comparable found. |
| Egypt | Nothing comparable found. |
| Kenya | Nothing comparable found. |
| Ukraine | Nothing comparable found. |
| Turkey | Nothing comparable found. |
| Argentina | Nothing comparable found. |
| South Africa | Nothing comparable found. |
| Mexico | A labour observatory publishes graduate outcomes, but it is not matched to tax records. |
| Brazil | A national employment register exists. Whether it supports earnings by course was not established. |
| Australia | A national graduate survey. Good, but a survey, so people who do not answer are missing. It does publish computing separately, which most systems in the table above do not: the median computing and information systems graduate in full-time work earned A$75,300 a year, measured four to six months after finishing, against A$75,000 across all study areas. Read that as a starting salary and not a career one. |
| Singapore | A graduate employment survey run by the universities themselves. |
Two words that mean something specific here
Unverified means the row has not been confirmed against the publisher's own primary source. It is a lead worth following, not a fact worth quoting. Rows are marked this way rather than dropped because a lead you can check is more use than a silence you cannot.
None found is a statement about the search, not about the world. It records that somebody looked and came back empty. Several of the bodies listed here publish almost nothing in English and work mainly through mediation, so an absence in this column is at least as likely to be a limit of the search as a fact about enforcement.
Where a row names a nearest equivalent, that equivalent is usually much weaker than the thing it stands in for, and the row says so. The point of publishing the weaker answer is that you can see what you are being offered instead.