School is expensive enough if you graduate from a four-year university in 2026. But grad school, especially multi-year grad school, can be incredibly expensive.

The long-term promise has always been higher career pay that eventually makes up for those educational costs – and then some. But is that still the case?

A new study found that, well, sometimes.

Graduate programs boost students’ earnings by about 17% on average, although there’s a wide range.

The cost-adjusted returns for doctors, pharmacists and lawyers are especially lucrative. While those in social services often see negative cost-adjusted returns (psychology, clinical psychology, social work, curriculum and instruction).

Here are the 18 popular graduate programs the study examined, along with the cost-adjusted returns (salary increase adjusted for educational cost):

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