College students, listen up: Business degrees are the most popular undergraduate and graduate major in the U.S., but do they pay off? A new report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce looked at the return on investment (ROI) of 5,500 business programs at more than 1,700 colleges.
It found that the value of business programs is high compared with most other programs, although not as high as the returns associated with health, engineering, and computer and information sciences programs. Looking at students’ earnings relative to their federal student debt, the authors found that even though there’s some variation between institutions and degree levels, the majority of business programs lead to median earnings that are about 10 times graduates’ debt payments, two years after graduation. “Strong financial returns are good news for the more than 700,000 graduates each year who pursue the most popular field of study for bachelor’s and master’s degree holders,” said Anthony Carnevale, the lead report author and director of Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. “This information will help prospective students and their families assess the value of various business programs,” he added. At some schools, the ROI is high: A master’s graduate who attended the University of Pennsylvania would make $165,600, after debt payments, followed by Dartmouth College ($162,000), Mas …