Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Business Economics (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Business Economics earn a median of $77,981 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $55,058 and $106,683. We rank the 54 U.S. colleges whose Business Economics programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,990 graduates in all. That puts Business Economics at #31 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
University of California-Los Angeles, in California, leads at $129,425, 61% above the median ranked school ($80,502). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $73,426 and $87,120, and the lowest earns $57,162, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 32 of the 54 ranked schools (59%) match or beat the national median.
The top 20 mix sectors: 9 public, 11 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. California places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Georgia (2).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $25,598 a year, against $17,393 across all 54 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $21,500 in federal loans, about 23% 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 1.7 years.
Showing the top 50 of 54 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Public · 4-year | $129,425 | 97 | $17,332 | $12,548 | 0.5 |
| 2 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $123,614 | 47 | $27,000 | $43,756 | 2.0 |
| 3 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $117,015 | 42 | — | $15,564 | 0.8 |
| 4 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $116,367 | 33 † | $14,700 | $37,244 | 1.8 |
| 5 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $113,630 | 35 † | $23,240 | $36,931 | 1.9 |
| 6 | Bentley University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $108,886 | 46 | $26,000 | $37,930 | 2.2 |
| 7 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $101,674 | 31 † | $24,000 | $28,384 | 1.7 |
| 8 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $96,843 | 91 | $19,500 | $17,339 | 1.1 |
| 9 | University of South Carolina-Columbia Columbia, SC Public · 4-year | $94,547 | 97 | $23,250 | $22,811 | 1.5 |
| 10 | DePaul University Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $93,563 | 48 | $20,670 | $30,902 | 2.2 |
| 11 | Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $92,079 | 29 † | $20,544 | $31,446 | 2.3 |
| 12 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $90,045 | 54 | $20,500 | $16,674 | 1.2 |
| 13 | Hampden-Sydney College Hampden-Sydney, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $87,835 | 77 | $26,970 | $22,400 | 1.7 |
| 14 | University of California-Davis Davis, CA Public · 4-year | $87,455 | 358 | $12,917 | $14,741 | 1.2 |
| 15 | The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL Public · 4-year | $86,114 | 46 | $21,500 | $22,420 | 1.7 |
| 16 | Chapman University Orange, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,978 | 28 † | $22,977 | $46,555 | 3.9 |
| 17 | Westmont College Santa Barbara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,815 | 53 | $25,000 | $29,053 | 2.4 |
| 18 | Baylor University Waco, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,808 | 63 | $22,500 | $41,104 | 3.3 |
| 19 | Georgia State University Atlanta, GA Public · 4-year | $84,681 | 62 | $19,296 | $15,931 | 1.3 |
| 20 | University of Georgia Athens, GA Public · 4-year | $84,675 | 77 | $19,490 | $13,936 | 1.1 |
| 21 | University of Dayton Dayton, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $84,595 | 62 | $22,698 | $29,533 | 2.4 |
| 22 | CUNY Bernard M Baruch College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $84,280 | 85 | $13,666 | $3,033 | 0.2 |
| 23 | University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE Public · 4-year | $83,175 | 51 | $19,500 | $17,747 | 1.5 |
| 24 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh Raleigh, NC Public · 4-year | $82,096 | 59 | $22,062 | $17,303 | 1.4 |
| 25 | University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA Public · 4-year | $82,064 | 282 | $16,519 | $17,890 | 1.6 |
| 26 | The University of Texas at Arlington Arlington, TX Public · 4-year | $80,711 | 46 | $14,866 | $13,951 | 1.2 |
| 27 | Saint Louis University Saint Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,588 | 33 † | $23,462 | $24,398 | 2.1 |
| 28 | The University of Tennessee-Knoxville Knoxville, TN Public · 4-year | $80,415 | 27 † | $23,847 | $18,976 | 1.7 |
| 29 | Wheaton College Wheaton, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $80,258 | 70 | $24,000 | $26,975 | 2.4 |
| 30 | Wofford College Spartanburg, SC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,906 | 40 | — | $18,732 | 1.7 |
| 31 | University of North Texas Denton, TX Public · 4-year | $78,740 | 25 † | $14,500 | $15,649 | 1.4 |
| 32 | Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $78,094 | 47 | $21,899 | $36,079 | 3.4 |
| 33 | University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA Public · 4-year | $77,807 | 379 | $15,000 | $14,251 | 1.4 |
| 34 | Ball State University Muncie, IN Public · 4-year | $76,847 | 48 | $26,821 | $14,940 | 1.5 |
| 35 | Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year | $74,435 | 25 † | $20,012 | $16,805 | 1.7 |
| 36 | Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Edwardsville, IL Public · 4-year | $74,248 | 42 | $19,275 | $14,889 | 1.6 |
| 37 | University of Kentucky Lexington, KY Public · 4-year | $74,202 | 72 | $20,441 | $18,851 | 1.9 |
| 38 | University of Central Florida Orlando, FL Public · 4-year | $74,103 | 49 | $18,914 | $10,411 | 1.0 |
| 39 | University of Nevada-Reno Reno, NV Public · 4-year | $74,032 | 59 | — | $15,927 | 1.7 |
| 40 | California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA Public · 4-year | $73,980 | 40 | $18,329 | $10,440 | 1.1 |
| 41 | Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI Public · 4-year | $73,241 | 86 | $24,281 | $16,317 | 1.7 |
| 42 | SUNY Oneonta Oneonta, NY Public · 4-year | $70,986 | 206 | $18,750 | $19,158 | 2.2 |
| 43 | Oklahoma State University-Main Campus Stillwater, OK Public · 4-year | $69,153 | 48 | $16,282 | $17,447 | 2.0 |
| 44 | Kent State University at Kent Kent, OH Public · 4-year | $68,757 | 45 | $25,000 | $20,787 | 2.5 |
| 45 | The University of Texas at San Antonio San Antonio, TX Public · 4-year | $67,547 | 55 | $18,246 | $10,836 | 1.3 |
| 46 | University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC Public · 4-year | $67,182 | 69 | $21,000 | $15,435 | 1.9 |
| 47 | State University of New York at Cortland Cortland, NY Public · 4-year | $66,644 | 137 | $21,470 | $22,345 | 2.9 |
| 48 | Colorado State University Pueblo Pueblo, CO Public · 4-year | $65,720 | 28 † | $18,000 | $10,051 | 1.6 |
| 49 | Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA Public · 4-year | $64,164 | 73 | $18,000 | $23,433 | 3.4 |
| 50 | University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA Public · 4-year | $64,147 | 149 | $18,000 | $14,304 | 2.1 |
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 Economics (CIP 5206, 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 54.
- 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 Economics 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio | $90,719 | 4 | Miami University-Oxford |
| Georgia | $84,675 | 3 | Georgia State University |
| California | $83,440 | 8 | University of California-Los Angeles |
| Illinois | $79,176 | 4 | DePaul University |
| Texas | $78,740 | 5 | Baylor University |
| New York | $70,986 | 3 | CUNY Bernard M Baruch College |
| North Carolina | $67,182 | 3 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh |
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