Highest paying business degrees – 2024

Many roads lead to a job in business. For better or worse, most of those roads involve a university degree, unless you’re a one-in-a-million entrepreneur changing the world from your parents’ garage.

While success in business depends on many factors other than what you studied in college, government data shows that 4 years after graduating, some business degrees unlock far higher salaries than others (spoiler: number crunchers earn more).

To help you jump start your career, we reveal the highest-paying business degrees in 2024.

Highest paying business majors

We analyzed government data from IPEDS (2021-2022) to determine which types of business majors get paid the most 4 years after graduating.

IPEDS is a primary source from the National Center for Education Statistics. It publishes data on economic outcomes of degree programs for students who received at least $1 in financial aid. IPEDS categorizes degree types using CIP codes.

We looked at various undergraduate majors (which have been assigned a CIP code) that commonly feed into corporate and business-related jobs.

Note that this data is for all people with a particular degree – whether or not they are working in their field. We only show earnings info for degrees with 10 or more colleges disclosing data.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the highest-paid business majors involve the most math: they are insurance ($73,001), economics ($72,055), and finance ($70,622).

Meanwhile, 4 years after graduating, general business majors make $60,109, while business administration majors make $55,476.

Highest paying business master’s degrees

The highest-paying business master’s degrees are general business ($112,198), finance ($101,649), and business economics ($100,021).

Note that some degrees featured at the bachelor’s level have too few programs to rank at the master’s level.

Also remember that many businesspeople working in marketing, for example, choose to advance their careers through a master’s in business administration (MBA) rather than a master’s in marketing.

Will my business degree land me a job in business?

Not everyone gets to put their college degree to use. While this is especially true for fine arts majors, it extends to business as well. Some types of business majors have higher rates of underemployment than others.

Underemployment is when you have a job – but not one that you need a degree for; in many cases, underemployed individuals struggle to pay back their student loans.

“Underemployment is when you have a job – but not one you need a degree for.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which tracks underemployment, the business majors with the lowest rates of underemployment are accounting (21%), business analytics (28.5%), and finance (29.1%).

Thus, people who study accounting are highly likely to land a job that requires a bachelor’s – presumably as an accountant. This makes accounting a great choice for people who don’t want to take unnecessary risks and are seeking a clear path to a solid career after graduation.

Meanwhile, the business degrees with the highest underemployment rates are business management (53.6%), general business (51.8%), and marketing (49.5%). These majors are more of a gamble: around half of all individuals with these degrees are not using them, although they potentially lead to very high-earning positions for some.

The highest paying business jobs

If you want to earn good money in business, your best bet is management. Management roles account for the vast majority of the top 25 best-paid jobs in business according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

To no-one’s surprise, the highest paying business job is chief executive. C-suite execs make a whopping $258,900 per year on average.

Next come IT managers ($169,510), advertising, promotions, and marketing managers ($156,580), and financial managers ($156,100).

For many, an important step to reaching management is getting a Master of Business Administration. See our breakdown of top-tier MBA programs for more information.

» Also read: What’s the difference between a B.B.A and a B.S.?

The highest paying business job without “manager” in the title is actuary. Actuaries, who are in charge of calculating the potential costs of insurance events, earn an average of $113,990 per year. Actuaries are math whizzes who need to pass a series of grueling exams to be fully qualified.

All the data in this section is sourced from the BLS. Click on the links for more information on these careers.

1. Chief executives – $258,900
2. IT managers – $169,510
3. Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers – $156,580
4. Financial managers – $156,100
5. Compensation and benefits managers – $136,380
6. Human resources managers – $136,350
7. Sales managers – $135,160
8. Agents/managers for artists, performers, and athletes – $132,810
9. PR and fundraising managers – $130,480
10. General and operations managers – $129,330
11. Training and development managers – $125,040
12. Actuaries – $120,000
13. Sales rep for technical and scientific products – $113,520
14. Data scientist – $108,020
15. Administrative services and facilities managers – $104,900
16. Financial analysts – $99,890
17. Personal financial advisors – $99,580
18. Management analysts – $99,410
19. Project management specialists – $98,580
20. Labor relations specialists – $89,980
21. Budget analysts – $84,940
22. Financial examiners – $84,300
23. Operations research analysts – $83,640
24. Accountants and auditors – $79,880
25. Logisticians – $79,400

Is a business degree worth it?

Studying business can be worth it, but there are better majors out there. Let’s take the bachelor’s in business administration (B.B.A.) as an example. B.B.A. holders earn an average of $55,476 per year 4 years after graduation.

This means that B.B.A holders only earn about 8.6% more than the average person with a bachelor’s degree.

By value for money, a bachelor’s in business administration ranks below average according to our economic score metric.

» Also read: 20 online degrees that pay well

If you want to be sure of getting a high salary after you graduate, look to STEM degrees: majors like computer science ($99,158 per year), electrical engineering ($90,590), or chemical engineering ($86,902) earn far higher average salaries, 4 years after graduating.

Use the degree comparison tool on our B.B.A. ranking page to compare different majors by value for money!

Best colleges for business – by average salary 4 years on

If you’re passionate about the buzzing world of business and determined to throw your hat in the ring, read on to discover the American universities with the highest earning B.B.A. grads.

Business degrees are very popular, and where you went to school still means a lot to some employers. Therefore, there is a huge salary range between graduates of top business schools and the rest of them.

People who majored in business at the 8 colleges below are making 6-figure average salaries just 4 years after completing their undergraduate degree.

Best-value colleges for business

While the B.B.A programs on the list above are great, some of them are so expensive that their earning potential is compromised by loan payments.

To figure out which degrees are the best value, we have devised a formula that calculates which colleges offer the optimal combination of earnings potential and affordability, based on the concept of return on investment (ROI). The formula spits out an economic score; the lower the score, the better.

The best-value colleges for a B.B.A are shown below. Note that “net price” refers to the average price students pay per year – after financial aid but including room and board.

Final thoughts

A lot of Americans work in business, and some of them do pretty well for themselves. For many, a college degree was the first step on their journey.

If you want a business degree that will jumpstart your corporate career, choose one with good economic outcomes after graduation – as this article shows, this often means prioritizing more quantitative subjects.

If numbers aren’t your cup of tea, work on developing your soft skills – these can get you much farther than anything you learn in the classroom.