Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Finance (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Finance earn a median of $83,343 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $60,801 and $111,527. We rank the 344 U.S. colleges whose Finance programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 40,402 graduates in all. That puts Finance at #24 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
University of Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania, leads at $202,069, 158% above the median ranked school ($78,317). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $70,414 and $90,192, and the lowest earns $50,156. 133 of the 344 ranked schools (39%) match or beat the national median.
Private nonprofit colleges dominate the top 20: 17 private nonprofit, 3 public and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 63% are public. Pennsylvania places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of District of Columbia (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $37,720 a year, against $18,256 across all 344 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,500 in federal loans, about 15% 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 1.6 years.
Showing the top 50 of 344 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $202,069 | 111 | $12,999 | $28,699 | 0.7 |
| 2 | Washington University in St Louis St. Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $185,551 | 55 | $19,500 | $21,786 | 0.6 |
| 3 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $160,313 | 126 | $19,000 | $26,780 | 0.9 |
| 4 | Georgetown University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $152,744 | 121 | $15,750 | $40,815 | 1.4 |
| 5 | Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $147,746 | 250 | $18,000 | $41,704 | 1.6 |
| 6 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $145,996 | 45 | $19,500 | $28,719 | 1.0 |
| 7 | Fordham University Bronx, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $141,860 | 179 | $26,870 | $44,338 | 1.7 |
| 8 | American University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $134,332 | 39 † | $22,625 | $41,943 | 1.8 |
| 9 | Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $133,852 | 75 | $19,439 | $40,892 | 1.7 |
| 10 | The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $132,075 | 199 | $20,500 | $19,857 | 0.8 |
| 11 | Villanova University Villanova, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $131,996 | 275 | $26,000 | $43,756 | 1.8 |
| 12 | Brigham Young University Provo, UT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $129,879 | 160 | $11,625 | $15,564 | 0.7 |
| 13 | Tulane University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $129,850 | 100 | $21,250 | $39,949 | 1.7 |
| 14 | Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $127,210 | 165 | $23,250 | $36,931 | 1.6 |
| 15 | George Washington University Washington, DC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $126,638 | 81 | $18,148 | $36,586 | 1.7 |
| 16 | Drexel University Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $121,832 | 44 | — | $38,509 | 1.8 |
| 17 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $120,274 | 180 | $27,000 | $38,793 | 1.8 |
| 18 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL Public · 4-year | $119,978 | 192 | $19,500 | $14,355 | 0.7 |
| 19 | Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $118,737 | 95 | $14,490 | $50,062 | 2.4 |
| 20 | Binghamton University Vestal, NY Public · 4-year | $115,013 | 96 | $15,363 | $21,620 | 1.1 |
| 21 | Bentley University Waltham, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $113,795 | 255 | $25,000 | $37,930 | 2.1 |
| 22 | Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX Public · 4-year | $112,319 | 145 | $16,671 | $21,315 | 1.1 |
| 23 | Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $111,304 | 92 | $19,000 | $36,660 | 1.9 |
| 24 | University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD Public · 4-year | $110,648 | 208 | $19,500 | $15,678 | 0.9 |
| 25 | Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH Public · 4-year | $110,406 | 254 | $21,788 | $28,384 | 1.5 |
| 26 | University of Miami Coral Gables, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $110,240 | 122 | $14,500 | $37,244 | 2.0 |
| 27 | Loyola Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $109,303 | 78 | $19,500 | $48,381 | 2.7 |
| 28 | University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI Public · 4-year | $107,207 | 313 | $20,181 | $17,354 | 1.0 |
| 29 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK Public · 4-year | $106,719 | 108 | $19,500 | $15,300 | 0.9 |
| 30 | Fairfield University Fairfield, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $106,663 | 159 | $27,000 | $48,095 | 2.8 |
| 31 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL Public · 4-year | $106,153 | 233 | $16,681 | $6,541 | 0.4 |
| 32 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $104,926 | 157 | $19,500 | $23,322 | 1.4 |
| 33 | Menlo College Atherton, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,918 | 27 † | $23,250 | $31,100 | 1.9 |
| 34 | University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,605 | 69 | $24,394 | $41,431 | 2.5 |
| 35 | Elon University Elon, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,426 | 130 | $19,500 | $41,555 | 2.4 |
| 36 | Providence College Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $103,021 | 205 | $27,000 | $48,523 | 3.1 |
| 37 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA Public · 4-year | $102,902 | 258 | $21,500 | $24,953 | 1.5 |
| 38 | Baylor University Waco, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $102,812 | 121 | $21,500 | $41,104 | 2.4 |
| 39 | University of Connecticut Storrs, CT Public · 4-year | $102,286 | 220 | $19,500 | $25,097 | 1.6 |
| 40 | Michigan State University East Lansing, MI Public · 4-year | $102,017 | 313 | $22,500 | $19,680 | 1.2 |
| 41 | Illinois Wesleyan University Bloomington, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $101,609 | 28 † | $26,000 | $28,199 | 1.7 |
| 42 | University of Delaware Newark, DE Public · 4-year | $101,605 | 424 | $23,495 | $17,799 | 1.1 |
| 43 | University of Scranton Scranton, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,962 | 65 | $26,423 | $32,568 | 2.0 |
| 44 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $100,938 | 148 | $19,500 | $16,674 | 1.0 |
| 45 | University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT Public · 4-year | $100,793 | 84 | $18,408 | $16,200 | 1.0 |
| 46 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ Public · 4-year | $100,695 | 676 | $20,620 | $24,406 | 1.5 |
| 47 | Manhattan University Riverdale, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $100,376 | 89 | $26,323 | $27,256 | 1.7 |
| 48 | Seattle University Seattle, WA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,791 | 71 | $23,000 | $34,662 | 2.3 |
| 49 | University of Denver Denver, CO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $99,135 | 104 | $19,500 | $36,131 | 2.5 |
| 50 | St. John's University-New York Queens, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $98,970 | 167 | $26,000 | $29,999 | 1.9 |
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 Finance (CIP 5208, 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 344.
- 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 Finance 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 | $126,638 | 5 | Georgetown University |
| Utah | $93,858 | 5 | Brigham Young University |
| Massachusetts | $93,693 | 9 | Boston College |
| Rhode Island | $89,657 | 7 | Providence College |
| Oklahoma | $89,437 | 4 | University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus |
| Pennsylvania | $89,087 | 21 | University of Pennsylvania |
| Virginia | $88,080 | 5 | James Madison University |
| Washington | $86,012 | 5 | Seattle University |
| New York | $84,956 | 21 | Fordham University |
| South Carolina | $84,187 | 5 | University of South Carolina-Columbia |
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