Public Safety
What you'll do in college
These majors prepare students for careers in firefighting, emergency medical services, disaster response, and emergency management. Coursework spans fire behavior and suppression, building construction and life safety codes, hazardous materials, incident command, emergency medical care, disaster planning, and risk and crisis communication. Programs often include hands-on burn-tower drills, internships with municipal fire departments, ride-alongs with EMS units, and tabletop and field simulations of multi-agency disaster response.
What you'll do after college
Graduates pursue careers as firefighters, fire officers, fire inspectors, arson investigators, paramedics and EMTs, emergency managers, hazmat specialists, and continuity-of-operations planners across municipal, state, and federal agencies (FEMA, USFA, U.S. Forest Service). Pay starts modestly but rises quickly with rank, certifications, and overtime, and the field offers strong pensions, defined promotion ladders, and unusual job stability. A subset advance into fire chief and emergency-management director roles, move into corporate business continuity and risk management, or pursue master's degrees in public administration, homeland security, or fire protection engineering.
Famous graduates
- Steve Buscemi — Actor and director; served as an FDNY firefighter with Engine Co. 55 in Little Italy from 1980 to 1984 before his film career, and returned to volunteer at Ground Zero after 9/11
- Craig Fugate — FEMA Administrator under President Obama (2009–2017) and longtime director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management; widely credited with steering federal disaster response away from the post-Katrina playbook
Selectivity vs. earnings
By acceptance rate
By SAT median
Earnings vs. selectivity rank
Majors in this category
| Major | Colleges | Degrees ▼ | Male/Female | Intl | Earnings | Employment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Safety | 71 | 1,019 | 75% / 25% | 2% | $66,673 | 96% |
| Emergency Management | 44 | 522 | 68% / 32% | 1% | $62,316 | 95% |
| Fire Services Administration | 17 | 269 | 87% / 13% | 1% | $73,767 | 98% |
| Disaster Management | 1 | 60 | 82% / 18% | 0% | $64,209 | |
| Fire Science | 7 | 58 | 69% / 31% | 5% | $64,420 | 99% |
| Fire Protection | 3 | 58 | 74% / 26% | 12% | $69,865 | 96% |
| Fire and Arson Investigation | 1 | 21 | 86% / 14% | 5% | $81,591 | 97% |
| Safety | 1 | 13 | 62% / 38% | 0% | $86,227 | 100% |
| Fire Science/Fire-fighting | 1 | 12 | 92% / 8% | 0% | $57,666 | 90% |
| Security Science and Technology, General | 2 | 6 | 83% / 17% | 0% |