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2026 Highest Paid Environmental Engineering Grads in the Southwest Region

[Environmental Engineering](/majors/engineering/environmental-engineering/) is a field where your choice of school can shape what you earn after graduation. The highest-paying schools turn a environmental engineering degree into the strongest early-career earnings.

For its 2026 highest-paid-graduates ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools to find where environmental engineering graduates earn the most.

What’s on this page:

• Highest Paid Environmental Engineering Grads in the Southwest Region

2026 Highest Paid Environmental Engineering Grads in the Southwest Region

If you want to know which schools send environmental engineering graduates into the highest-paying careers, see the list below.

Highest Paid Environmental Engineering Graduates

1

Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX

$76,766 Average Early-Career Salary

Leading the list is Texas Tech University, our #1 for environmental engineering graduate salaries in the Southwest Region. Texas Tech University is a public school located in the city of Lubbock. Students who complete the environmental engineering program here go on to a median salary of roughly $76,766.

2

Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ

$70,453 Average Early-Career Salary

Students chasing top earnings in environmental engineering will find them at Northern Arizona University, which ranked #2. Northern Arizona University is a public school located in the city of Flagstaff. Early-career environmental engineering graduates from Northern Arizona University make a median of around $70,453 per year.

3

Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ

$70,312 Average Early-Career Salary

A rank of #3 makes Arizona State University one of the highest-paying schools for environmental engineering. Set in the city of Tempe, Arizona State University is a public institution. Environmental Engineering graduates of Arizona State University earn a median of about $70,312 a year early in their careers.

View All Environmental Engineering Rankings >

Notes and References

This ranking is produced by College Factual, 2026 edition. The methodology measures the salaries environmental engineering graduates go on to earn early in their careers, drawn primarily from the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard field-of-study earnings and IPEDS).

Ranking method: College Major Earnings · 3 schools evaluated.

*Salary figures reflect median early-career earnings (about 5 years after graduation) and may vary by how long a person takes to complete their degree.

• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), serves as the core of our data about colleges.
• Graduate earnings data comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard) field-of-study earnings.

More about our data sources and methodologies.