Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Business Administration (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Business Administration earn a median of $68,257 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $47,618 and $93,584. We rank the 944 U.S. colleges whose Business Administration programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 167,587 graduates in all. That puts Business Administration at #43 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, leads at $160,783, 147% above the median ranked school ($64,980). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $58,253 and $72,849, and the lowest earns $39,251. 352 of the 944 ranked schools (37%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 9 public, 11 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. The top 20 are spread across 13 states, with California the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $23,598 a year, against $19,096 across all 944 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,500 in federal loans, about 16% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 1.1 years.
Showing the top 50 of 944 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $160,783 | 119 | $23,250 | $31,944 | 1.0 |
| 2 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Public · 4-year | $144,654 | 551 | $19,000 | $13,138 | 0.5 |
| 3 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA Public · 4-year | $144,599 | 203 | $11,300 | $13,481 | 0.5 |
| 4 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $136,806 | 51 | $20,348 | $28,699 | 1.1 |
| 5 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $136,731 | 199 | $19,500 | $22,585 | 0.9 |
| 6 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC Public · 4-year | $135,874 | 319 | $14,239 | $11,655 | 0.5 |
| 7 | Maine Maritime Academy Castine, ME Public · 4-year | $123,155 | 29 † | $27,000 | $23,414 | 1.1 |
| 8 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $123,144 | 69 | $18,125 | $41,704 | 2.0 |
| 9 | Bismarck State College Bismarck, ND Public · 4-year | $122,948 | 58 | $15,250 | $10,270 | 0.5 |
| 10 | Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $121,699 | 36 † | — | $23,781 | 1.1 |
| 11 | Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $117,733 | 36 † | $14,975 | $40,815 | 2.1 |
| 12 | William & Mary Williamsburg, VA Public · 4-year | $111,366 | 124 | $19,500 | $19,096 | 1.0 |
| 13 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA Public · 4-year | $110,902 | 555 | $16,633 | $16,665 | 0.9 |
| 14 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $109,128 | 639 | $15,750 | $32,740 | 1.8 |
| 15 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,412 | 563 | $23,196 | $24,402 | 1.4 |
| 16 | Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,400 | 113 | $27,000 | $41,346 | 2.3 |
| 17 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $107,904 | 133 | $19,087 | $14,355 | 0.8 |
| 18 | Babson College Wellesley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $107,520 | 445 | $22,766 | $40,514 | 2.4 |
| 19 | Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $106,765 | 32 † | $24,251 | $36,660 | 2.0 |
| 20 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $106,155 | 275 | $21,500 | $12,116 | 0.7 |
| 21 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $105,544 | 96 | $11,000 | $15,564 | 0.9 |
| 22 | University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $104,390 | 123 | $23,250 | $41,431 | 2.5 |
| 23 | University of Richmond University of Richmond, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,856 | 154 | $20,577 | $31,309 | 1.9 |
| 24 | Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,895 | 45 | $19,500 | $36,425 | 2.2 |
| 25 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $100,005 | 135 | $20,000 | $17,354 | 1.1 |
| 26 | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,713 | 67 | $25,000 | $36,228 | 2.3 |
| 27 | Bentley University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,514 | 178 | $25,000 | $37,930 | 2.6 |
| 28 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,481 | 30 † | $20,500 | $36,931 | 2.4 |
| 29 | Yeshiva University New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $97,914 | 65 | $21,750 | $49,965 | 3.2 |
| 30 | Tulane University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $95,966 | 75 | $19,250 | $39,949 | 2.6 |
| 31 | University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus Pittsburgh, PA Public · 4-year | $95,917 | 46 | $20,500 | $30,434 | 2.0 |
| 32 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $95,796 | 89 | $24,250 | $28,384 | 1.9 |
| 33 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $94,458 | 100 | $20,500 | $19,857 | 1.3 |
| 34 | University of Minnesota-Crookston Crookston, MN Public · 4-year | $93,969 | 83 | $21,305 | $12,212 | 0.9 |
| 35 | Loyola University Maryland Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,753 | 354 | $27,000 | $30,574 | 2.2 |
| 36 | Clarkson University Potsdam, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,152 | 45 | $24,250 | $30,305 | 2.1 |
| 37 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst Amherst, MA Public · 4-year | $92,623 | 176 | $20,500 | $22,383 | 1.7 |
| 38 | Westminster University Salt Lake City, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,548 | 34 † | $22,000 | $27,094 | 2.0 |
| 39 | University of Dayton Dayton, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,317 | 47 | $23,000 | $29,533 | 2.1 |
| 40 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,472 | 103 | $27,000 | $38,793 | 2.8 |
| 41 | Pepperdine University Malibu, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $91,227 | 148 | $27,000 | $58,098 | 4.3 |
| 42 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $91,187 | 507 | $21,500 | $19,680 | 1.4 |
| 43 | Marist University Poughkeepsie, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,855 | 384 | $25,000 | $41,544 | 3.0 |
| 44 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN Public · 4-year | $90,284 | 102 | $19,500 | $16,778 | 1.3 |
| 45 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $90,192 | 209 | $25,000 | $44,338 | 3.3 |
| 46 | Bryant University Smithfield, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,929 | 126 | $27,000 | $41,219 | 3.3 |
| 47 | Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,745 | 127 | $23,554 | $36,079 | 2.7 |
| 48 | University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,540 | 55 | $21,500 | $15,232 | 1.1 |
| 49 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $89,105 | 176 | $23,302 | $17,799 | 1.4 |
| 50 | Dominican University of California San Rafael, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $88,913 | 60 | $25,000 | $35,333 | 2.7 |
How this ranking is built
A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Which programs count
- Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
- Only bachelor's degree programs in Business Administration (CIP 5202, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
- At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
- A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 944.
- Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
- Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
- What the numbers mean
- Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
- Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
- Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
- Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
- Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
- Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
- Payback: 4 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.
Top states for Business Administration earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $87,907 | 5 | Georgetown University |
| Utah | $84,885 | 7 | Brigham Young University |
| Rhode Island | $76,285 | 8 | Bryant University |
| Colorado | $74,278 | 11 | University of Colorado Boulder |
| Vermont | $73,203 | 5 | University of Vermont |
| Washington | $72,698 | 14 | Washington State University |
| California | $72,651 | 55 | University of California-Berkeley |
| Massachusetts | $72,301 | 28 | Boston College |
| New Hampshire | $72,293 | 8 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus |
| Oregon | $71,621 | 9 | George Fox University |
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