NACE

"With fewer jobs available—meaning less demand—some majors are seeing lower starting salaries," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.

Lower salaries are not the case across the board, however, and many of the business disciplines saw their average salary offer increase—at least slightly—over last year, according to NACE's Summer 2003 Salary Survey report.

Accounting graduates have posted increases in every Salary Survey report except one over the past year and a half, and thoseoffers continue to rise. Their current offers are up 2 percent over last year, for an average starting salary of $40,546. Similarly, marketing grads have had a boost of 2.3 percent over last year to $34,628, and offers to business administration graduates have increased 1.9 percent, to $37,122.

Overall, economics/finance majors earned a minimal 0.3 percent increase over last year for an average of $40,084. However, graduates lucky enough to connect with petroleum manufacturers received an average of $49,041, while those who got offers from investment banking firms saw an average offer of $46,093. Consulting services firms also offered these graduates higher-than-average starting salaries, with offers from these firms coming in at an average of $45,565.

But not all business majors fared well. In fact, many of the more "technical" business disciplines experienced decreases in their average salary offers. The average offer to MIS grads, for example, dropped 4.2 percent from last year to $40,915.

Grads with computer-related degrees continue to be hit hard-their salary offers have been steadily declining over the past year. Salary offers to computer science graduates dropped 4.4 percent from last year at this time, lowering their average offer to $47,419. Even less fortunate are information sciences graduates; their average offer is down 6 percent to $39,787.

Among the engineering disciplines, there has been very little movement. Chemical engineering graduates now average $51,853, an increase of 0.8 percent; civil engineering grads average $41,352, a 0.1 percent increase; and computer engineering grads average $51,720, a 0.3 percent increase.On the minus side, electrical engineers now average $49,946, a decrease of 0.4 percent. Mechanical engineers gained no ground: Their current average of $48,441 shows no change over last year.

Liberal arts grads have reported some positive activity, but as data for them are limited, these increases may not hold up over time. English and criminal justice majors, for example, have both seen increases of 5.9 percent over last year. English majors now average $30,157 and criminal justice majors average $29,324. Psychology graduates have seen increases of 3.8 percent, pushing their average offer up to $27,454, while history grads reported averaging $32,108, an increase of 2.9 percent.

The final salary report for the Class of 2003 will be published in September, but it's doubtful that the Fall Salary Survey will show a reversal in the trend toward lower salaries, according to Mackes. "Then, the question will be: Will this trend continue with the Class of 2004?" Mackes says.