Category: Education

Thousands of students are graduating from local universities and transitioning into the work world, bringing fresh faces and ideas — and immense career earning power. Fresno County is home to Fresno State, Fresno Pacific, and California Health Sciences University. Additionally, University of California, Merced is just an hour away. The four universities report a total of almost 8,500 students walking at commencement this spring. This includes hundreds of students receiving master’s and doctorate degrees. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce says a bachelor’s degree holder will earn a median average of $2.8 million during their career — 75% more than the median average for a high school grad ($1.6 million). Multiply the Fresno area’s 8,500 college graduates by $2.8 million and their career earning power computes to $23.8 billion.

However, the figure is conservative because of California’s higher wages and the expected lifetime earnings of grads with master’s degrees ($3.2 million) and doctorates ($4 million). And it doesn’t include 2025 graduates from schools such as University of Phoenix-Fresno and National University-Fresno. Now here’s more good news for the Fresno economy: Much of that income will be generated, invested, and spent here. Based on data from Lightcast, an economic data mining service that the CSU partners with, of the 20,701 public profiles of Fresno State alumni who graduated between 2015 and 2025, 83.96% live and work in Central California, said Fresno State public information officer Lisa Bell. The other universities do not track where students go after college, but an analysis by Tallo, a website that connects students with resources, showed that 61% of college students plan on finding a job close to where they attended college. In addition, UC Merced and Fresno State report that over 50% of the graduating class are first-generation students.

Top Majors Among Graduates

The programs promising the highest pay are all STEM courses, but there is a wide variety of top majors from the four universities. Engineering and computer science are highest-paying majors according to Forbes. Both were a part of UC Merced’s most popular majors alongside biological sciences. However, Fresno States’ top majors were psychology, liberal studies, and biology. Fresno Pacific undergrads swayed towards liberal arts and early childhood development. There’s a clear mix of humanities, social sciences, and sciences among the Central Valley graduates, promising an even distribution between fields. California Health Sciences University had 109 medical students, and 22 master’s program students graduate with 23% completing residencies in the Central Valley. Sixty percent of the residencies are in Primary Care.

Breakdown of Colleges and Degrees

Fresno State had the biggest graduating class with 6,018 students walking at commencement: 5,125 receiving bachelor’s degrees and 866 getting their master’s. The doctoral cohorts and candidates consisted of 58 students receiving Doctor of Physical Therapy, Doctor of Educational Leadership, and Doctor of Nursing Practice. The College of Science and Mathematics had the largest class with a little over 1,000 graduates. UC Merced had 1,417 students walk at commencement with 1,296 getting a bachelor’s degree, 41 receiving a master’s degree, and 80 obtaining doctorates. The School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts had the largest class with 781 students walking. Fresno Pacific held ceremonies for 863 students graduating this spring. There were 467 students completing a bachelor’s degree and 396 students finishing a master’s degree. The largest number of students, 636, graduated from the School of Graduate and Professional Studies.

https://gvwire.com/2025/06/20/fresno-areas-newest-college-grads-boast-nearly-24-billion-in-earning-power/

California high-speed rail, a multibillion-dollar project designed to connect the Central Valley to Los Angeles and the Bay Area, promises swift transportation, the protection of agricultural land and contributions to a cleaner environment.

It’s also providing a lot of jobs – from design to construction to, eventually, operation.

UC Merced engineering students recently got the chance to see what opportunities might be available to them. Roughly 25 students took part in a Career Trek to visit the California High-Speed Rail Central Valley Regional Office in Fresno, as well as the Hanford and Cedar viaducts.

Career Treks are offered by the university’s Student Career Center. Students are taken on industry-specific recruiting trips to regions within California, hearing from employers about their professional journeys and the pathways they followed to career success.

Manny Machado, engineering career specialist in UC Merced’s Student Career Center, coordinated the March visit with help from two colleagues, employer services manager Magali Torres and internship and employer services coordinator Xue Lee.

“A Career Trek is when students have the chance to visit a nearby organization to hear more about their recruitment efforts, and to learn more about the work that they do,” Machado said. “During these trips, students get the opportunity to tour facilities, hear about job and internship opportunities they can get involved with, network with employees of that organization and hear more about professional pathways at said organization.

“These Career Treks are also a good way to expose scholars to different career industries while also giving them a chance to showcase their skillsets.”

Students met with engineering professionals at the rail project’s regional office.

“These professionals gave insight to their professional journeys, gave advice on how students can be proactive in their career development and talked about how the different engineering disciplines are needed on a large-scale project like this,” Machado said.

Final designs for the high-speed rail project call for about 500 miles of track stretching from Southern California to San Francisco. The first segment, in various stages of construction since 2015, is a 170-mile stretch from Merced to Bakersfield.

At the project’s Hanford Viaduct, students learned about environmental considerations for construction sites, toured the top of the structure, heard how the structure will become earthquake proof and learned more about the professional experiences of the construction site managers. Students learned more about these issues at the Cedar Viaduct; because it’s further along in construction, they could compare the sites’ development.

Students also learned about the different engineering disciplines required for this work. As the project continues to develop, there will be different roles needed at different times. For example, once construction is further developed, electrical engineers will be vital in incorporating components needed for the stations and tracks. Other opportunities soon to be available include internships with partner organizations such as Stantec and Caltrans. And once work begins on the rail’s Merced station, there likely will be more chances for UC Merced students to be involved.

For this particular Career Trek, participating students had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Once construction gets further along and trains start to run stations, the tours currently being hosted will no longer be offered to the public.

Students interested in learning more about Career Treks get can look at Instagram and view the events calendar through Handshake or go to the Career Center website.

The Student Career Center typically offers one or two Career Treks during the academic year. Previous destinations include Gallo and LinkedIn.

https://news.ucmerced.edu/news/2024/high-speed-rail-high-quality-jobs-career-trek-shows-students-opportunities