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Loved the chart, very interesting. Aren't most CEO's of corporations, business majors? not engineers? Aren't most business owners, business majors or drop outs like Bill Gates? Or me, a drop out of college, making six figures in my fifties selling real estate?

The chart is for starting salaries for graduates of a four-year program. If you are looking for the answers to your own questions, you're looking in the wrong spot.

Actually more CEOs of fortune 500 companies are engineers than any other academic background. Business and law degrees are also common but not as common. Both older companies - many of them much larger than average in this already large class - are especially likely to be run by engineers who came up from inside the company. There is also a high portion of technical CEOs at younger high tech companies, not always engineers (biotech, computers, etc). The law and business school types are common in finance, and in some types of conglomerates (particular 80s vintage ones) put together through financial dealing. Another group are families controlling business that grew into the large class while remaining family controlled, who are from all sorts of backgrounds and typically don't get into the boardroom via education or career track.