The gender wage gap is persistent, and a new study reveals that even women students who hail from Ivy League schools are falling short of shattering the glass ceiling, financially.
In fact, for "97.5% of the schools we looked at, female graduates earn less than male ones, a phenomenon that's likely to have gender equality implications for the rest of their lives," according to the new study by BusinessStudent.com, a website geared towards people pursuing business degrees.
The study looked at the average top 117 schools as defined by the U.S. News & World Report College Rankings for 2018 as well as data from the Department of Education to determine how much women graduates were making in comparison to men. It analyzed the average earnings for people who had started school six years prior and who are now working and no longer full-time students.
The study found that only three schools had females that made more than males after graduating: Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts; Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At Clark, women alumni pull in a mean salary of $33,600, compared to men at $33,500. At Stevens, women make $64,000 while men make $63,000. And at Yale, women make $74,700 in comparison to men's earnings of $74,600.
And while the differences between gender where women make more are $100 in two instances and $1,000 in the other, overall the study found that in the years following graduation, the average male alumni is earning $59,000, while the average female is earning $48,000, an $11,000 or 19 percent difference. Fifty-eight percent of the top schools covered in the study had female grads earning 10 to 20 percent less than males. Twenty-nine percent of women made 20 to 30 percent less, and 13 percent made 5 to 10 percent less.
Notably, the top 10 schools with the biggest gender wage gaps for graduates include a number of prestigious universities. Princeton University, for example, has the second biggest gender wage gap, according to the study, with males earning a median pay of $86,900, while females earn a median pay of $54,600; or 37.2 percent less than their male counterparts.
"This gender gap in earnings tends to be most pronounced at elite universities where graduates have access to the highest paying jobs," the study states.
Despite the gender wage gap, schools that offer the highest earning potential for female graduates include Harvard University, where female graduates make a median pay of $83,000; MIT, where they pull in a median pay of $82,400; and Stanford University, with a median pay of $76,700, according to the study.
The school with the biggest gender wage gap, though, is Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Median pay for female alumni that hail from the school earn 57.3 percent less than males ($24,800 compared to $58,100).
Here are the top 10 schools with the biggest gender wage gaps from graduates (based on mean earnings), according to BusinessStudent.com's study:
1. Brigham Young University
Men: $58,100
Women: $24,800
2. Princeton University
Men: $86,900
Women: $54,600
3. Wake Forest University
Men: $70,000
Women: $44,900
4. Rice University
Men: $76,600
Women: $49,400
5. Williams College
Men: $59,600
Women: $39,200
6. Pomona College
Men: $51,300
Women: $34,800
7. Stanford University
Men: $112,700
Women: $76,700
8. Carnegie Mellon
Men: $94,300
Women: $64,700
9. Brown University
Men: $72,300
Women: $50,200
10. Duke University
Men: $105,100
Women $73,500
It is worth noting that the study did not take into account a number of factors, including cost of living based on location and chosen occupation. The study also notes that since it looked at data from six years from the date they first arrived at school, it is statistically unlikely that a person would have a graduate degree, although it is possible.
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