Run the engine room of a ship. Four years at a maritime academy, a Coast Guard license, then months at sea and months at home.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$112,230
Lower tenth
$83,010
Top tenth
$173,330
The federal wage survey puts marine engineers together with naval architects, who design ships ashore. The median for the combined group is $112,230 a year and the bottom tenth are near $83,010. Sailing officers are usually paid a daily rate while aboard, so your yearly total depends on how many days you actually sail.
About $83,010 at the bottom tenth
New third assistant engineer, sailing or working in a shipyard
This is one of the few jobs where a four year degree leads to that number in your first year. It helps that while you are aboard you pay for no rent, no food and no commute, so most of it stays in the bank.
$173,330 at the top tenth
Chief engineers on large vessels and senior shoreside engineers
The rungs are third assistant, second assistant, first assistant, then chief. Each step needs documented sea service and another Coast Guard exam, so moving up takes years aboard rather than an office promotion.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end covers the two routes with almost no tuition: the federal academy at Kings Point in New York, where the government pays the tuition in exchange for a service commitment, and working up from an unlicensed engine room rating on sea time and Coast Guard exams. Both still leave you paying for boiler suits, steel toe boots, tools and the licence and exam fees. The high end is four years at a state maritime academy at resident rates plus the sea term fee, uniforms and gear. Several state academies carry federal scholarship money that cuts the bill in exchange for a commitment to sail, so ask each one for current figures.
Check the current numbers with each academy before you apply. Several state academies also have scholarship money attached to the federal maritime program, which cuts the bill in exchange for a commitment to sail.
Union health and pension plans
Engine officers are usually union, and the plans are funded from days worked rather than by a single employer.
Long paid leave
Rotations are commonly a few months on and a similar stretch off. Your time off is real time off, not weekends.
Food and a cabin
While aboard, your living costs are zero. People on this rotation save at a rate office jobs cannot match.
Travel paid both ways
The company flies you to the ship and home again at crew change.
Overtime
Engine room work beyond the watch schedule is paid, and there is a lot of it on an old ship.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Almost everyone goes to a maritime academy. The degree and the license are earned together, and you cannot graduate without the license.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Physics, math through pre-calculus, chemistry and any shop or auto class. Academies look at grades and at whether you can handle structure.
Maritime academy
4 years
Four years for a marine engineering degree. Massachusetts Maritime, for example, requires 152.5 credits, well above a standard engineering degree, because the license training sits on top.
Sea terms and cadet shipping
Each summer
Around 50 days a year of shipboard training, on a training ship or aboard working commercial vessels.
Coast Guard license exam
Final year
Pass it and you hold a third assistant engineer license, steam, motor and gas turbine, unlimited horsepower. Senior students have to earn it before the degree is issued.
Sail and upgrade
5 to 15 years
Log sea service, sit the next exam, move up through second and first assistant toward chief engineer.
Physics
Thermodynamics, pressure and mechanics are the whole engine room.
Math
Through pre-calculus at least. The degree is a real engineering degree.
Auto shop or small engines
Knowing what a wrench feels like before you arrive saves you a semester of catching up.
Chemistry
Fuel, lubricants, boiler water treatment and corrosion.
English
Log entries, reports and standing orders have to be exact.
This is one of the few American careers governed by a single federal credential instead of a state board. The United States Coast Guard issues the Merchant Mariner Credential, and the engineer endorsements on it are what let you stand a watch. Academy graduates sit the Coast Guard exam in their final year, and the federal maritime administration requires senior students to hold the third assistant engineer license before the school will hand over the degree. You can also come up the long way, by working as an unlicensed engine room rating and building the sea service needed to sit the exam, but it takes considerably longer than four years.
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
In Buzzards Bay. Marine engineering degree with about 50 days of shipboard training a year.
Cal Poly Maritime
The former California State University Maritime Academy in Vallejo, now part of California Polytechnic State University.
State University of New York Maritime College
In the Bronx, New York, on Long Island Sound.
Maine Maritime Academy
In Castine, Maine.
Texas A&M Maritime Academy and Great Lakes Maritime Academy
In Galveston, Texas and Traverse City, Michigan.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Liquefied natural gas and tanker endorsements
Specialist cargo training that raises your day rate and narrows the competition.
Dynamic positioning
Used on offshore supply and construction vessels that hold position without anchors.
Steam and gas turbine time
Fewer engineers hold current steam experience every year, which makes the ones who do valuable.
Civilian government sailing
The Navy's civilian crewed support fleet hires engineers and posts jobs on the federal hiring site.
Shoreside work
Port engineer, marine surveyor, shipyard or power plant. Most engineers come ashore eventually and the license is what gets them the job.
A TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential)
The federal identification card you need to get through a secured port gate.
A merchant mariner medical certificate
You have to pass a medical to hold the credential, so know early if something would disqualify you.
Strong swimming and firefighting training
Both are part of academy life and both are tested.
Welding and machining as a hobby
On a ship a week from land, the person who can fabricate a part is the most useful person aboard.
A tolerance for being out of touch
Internet at sea has improved but it is still slow, metered and sometimes off.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You stand a watch, often four hours on and eight off, around the clock. In the engine room it is 100 degrees, loud enough that you wear ear protection, and you walk the machinery reading gauges, taking temperatures and logging everything. Between watches comes maintenance: pulling a pump apart, changing filters, chasing an alarm that keeps going off at 3am. You eat in the mess with the same twenty people for months. When something breaks in the middle of the ocean, nobody is coming to help, so you fix it with what is aboard.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
At Massachusetts Maritime Academy senior marine engineering students have to complete the academics and earn the Coast Guard license before the degree is awarded. Fail the license exam and you do not graduate that spring.
Marine engineering at Massachusetts Maritime takes 152.5 credits, compared with about 128 for a standard engineering degree, because the license training and sea terms sit on top of the normal coursework.
The Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association has represented American marine engineers since 1875. It also runs its own engineering school for members upgrading their licenses.
A third assistant engineer license from a maritime academy reads steam, motor and gas turbine, unlimited horsepower. There is no size of engine room you are not allowed to work in, which is why the training is so long.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.