Northern Michigan's Medicinal Plant Chemistry Degree Explained

Originally published 2018-10-05.

Northern Michigan University (NMU), in Marquette on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offers a four-year bachelor's degree in Medicinal Plant Chemistry. It is often called a cannabis degree, but it is really a chemistry degree: students learn to grow, extract and test medicinal plants, cannabis included, with the aim of working in the analytical laboratories that check those products for potency and safety. The programme took its first students in the autumn of 2017, and NMU describes it as the first degree of its kind.

The degree drew national attention in 2018 when its founder said graduates could earn around $70,000 a year straight out of school. Here is what the programme actually involves, where that salary figure came from, and what anyone considering it should check before enrolling.

What students study

The core of the degree is chemistry and plant biology. Students first build a foundation across several chemistry courses and plant biology, and then choose one of two tracks:

• Bio-analytical track: more advanced chemistry and biology, aimed at laboratory work or graduate school.
• Entrepreneurial track: courses in accounting, finance and marketing for students who want to run or manage a business in the medicinal plant sector.

Both routes end in a year-long research capstone. In it, students grow and harvest legal plants, extract target compounds and measure them using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), the kind of instrument a commercial testing lab relies on. When the programme was announced, the university said it was buying a new LC-MS system specifically for this work. The programme also runs a cohort system that pairs first-year students with more advanced ones for mentoring.

The university has stressed from the start that the programme complies with state and federal law. Coursework focuses on legal plants and on transferable analytical skills rather than on cultivating cannabis on campus.

The molecule above is cannabidiol (CBD), one of more than a hundred cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant. Measuring how much CBD and THC a product really contains, and checking it for pesticides, solvents and mould, is exactly the type of job the degree prepares graduates for.

Why the programme was created

The idea came from Brandon Canfield, an associate professor of analytical chemistry at NMU. As more US states legalised medical and then recreational cannabis, each one required products to be tested by licensed laboratories. Those labs needed trained chemists, and Canfield saw a gap between short, non-accredited certificate courses on one side and graduate research programmes on the other.

In NMU's own announcement he called the degree an "innovative, inevitable response to national trends". The American Chemical Society had by then recognised cannabis chemistry as a subdivision, a sign that the field was being taken seriously by professional scientists.

Timing helped too. Michigan already allowed medical cannabis, and in November 2018 voters approved recreational use, creating a large regulated market with its own testing rules close to home.

Where the $70,000 figure came from

In a 2018 interview with CNBC Make It, Canfield said: "All of our graduates are going to be qualified to be analysts in a lab setting." He added that such a role could lead to a position paying about $70,000 right out of school.

That is a possible outcome, not a typical or guaranteed one. It is useful to compare it with official data. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $60,390 for chemical technicians and $91,240 for chemists (May 2025 figures). Entry-level pay is usually below the median, and it varies a lot by state, employer and whether the job is in a large urban market.

Put simply, a graduate with strong lab skills can earn a solid salary. But anyone choosing a degree for a specific salary should look at recent graduate outcomes rather than a single quote from launch publicity.

What graduates go on to do

According to NMU, graduates have gone to work in cannabis and other analytical laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotech labs, dispensaries, chemical supply companies, food and consumer product firms and healthcare labs. Others have continued to graduate programmes in pharmaceutical sciences, biological chemistry and plant biology at universities such as Purdue, Cornell and the University of Minnesota.

Demand from industry was visible early on. Canfield told reporters that growers, dispensaries and other businesses had offered internships to students in large numbers. Because the training is in analytical chemistry, the skills also transfer to herbal supplements, food chemistry, fermentation science and environmental testing, which is a useful safety net in an industry still shaped by changing laws.

(The Facebook video originally embedded here is no longer available.)

Is it an easy degree?

No, and that surprises some applicants. Students drawn in by the word cannabis meet a demanding science programme with several semesters of chemistry, lab reports and instrument work. Local news coverage of the programme has repeatedly made the same point: it is not an easy degree.

For students who enjoy chemistry and want an applied path, that rigour is the point. It is what makes graduates employable in regulated labs, where mistakes in a potency or contamination test can lead to product recalls.

Myths and things to check before enrolling

• Myth: it is a degree in growing marijuana. Cultivation is a small part. The main skills are chemical analysis and lab practice.
• Myth: a job at $70,000 is guaranteed. Salaries depend on the job market, location and the student's own record.
• Myth: cannabis work is legal everywhere. Cannabis remains restricted under US federal law, and some employers in federally regulated industries still screen for its use. State rules vary widely.
• Check: current course requirements, internship placements and recent employment data, all of which the university can provide.

Since 2017 other colleges have added cannabis-related courses and certificates, but NMU's four-year chemistry-based programme remains one of the best-known examples of how universities are adapting to a new legal industry.

Sources: Northern Michigan University: Medicinal Plant Chemistry; NMU News: NMU Offers New Medicinal Plant Chemistry Degree; US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Chemical Technicians; US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Chemists and Materials Scientists; CNBC Make It (original interview with Brandon Canfield, 2018).