Data presented reflects employment statistics of the 2011 M.A. students who graduated from the Washington campus. Approximately 50% of the students who graduate from the Washington campus spend their first year in Bologna.
SAIS graduates are employed all over the world. While the majority of 2011 SAIS graduates found employment in the United States, 16 percent are working internationally in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
The salary level of SAIS graduates varies considerably, depending on geographic location, employment sector and functional area within the sector. For the the Master of Arts graduates of 2011 (non-dual degree), median full-time salaries for each sector were as follows:
| Private | $65,000 |
| Public | $61,000 |
| Multilateral | $55,000 |
| Nonprofit | $49,000 |
The above figures do not include the additional salary benefits of SAIS graduates employed in the multilateral sector where income is often tax-free. Nor does it include signing bonuses or end-of-year bonuses which can be a significant part of private sector salaries.
The largest number of SAIS graduates, 41%, entered the private sector and many of those went to work in the consulting field in areas such as communications, defense and intelligence, international development, political risk, as well as strategic management consulting.
Of the 2011 M.A. graduating class, 25 percent found employment in the public sector in the U.S. federal government or in foreign governments. The top employer in the public sector was the U.S. Department of State.
U.S. Federal GovernmentThe nonprofit sector actively recruits SAIS graduates for their breadth and depth of knowledge in the international relations arena. Approximately 17 percent of the SAIS graduating class of 2011 went to work in a variety of areas in the nonprofit sector such as international development, think tanks and research, and education and training.
The multilateral sector employed 13 percent of the SAIS class of 2011. International development was the largest functional area of employment within these multilateral organizations. Other functional areas of employment in this sector were banking and finance, diplomacy, microfinance, monitoring and evaluation, and trade and economics.
More than 75 percent of SAIS graduates from the class of 2011 participated in summer internship opportunities to complement their academic training and to build their professional credentials, and 50 percent participated in internships during the academic year. Most academic-year internships took place in Washington, D.C., while many of the summer internships were international in nature.