Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Business Management degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $44,915 two years after finishing, more than 56% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 126 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

C

The verdict on the money

It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.

Median earnings $44,915 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $34,704–$54,192 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree +$5,395 vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 2,895 126 programmes

Where a Business Management degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Worcester Polytechnic Institute cost & debt at this university → $63,868 $69,338 $81,510 —
2 Wentworth Institute of Technology cost & debt at this university → $61,130 $67,240 $76,696 30
3 Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus cost & debt at this university → $61,252 $65,753 $74,632 66
4 Bentley University cost & debt at this university → $63,532 $64,174 $77,760 106
5 State University of New York at Plattsburgh cost & debt at this university → $42,910 $59,350 $56,535 —
6 Benedictine University cost & debt at this university → $51,278 $57,318 $66,559 77
7 Baylor University cost & debt at this university → not published $55,338 not published —
8 California State University-Dominguez Hills cost & debt at this university → $46,086 $55,338 $58,214 21
9 Southwestern College $56,603 $54,713 not published 13
10 Elon University $46,276 $54,192 $77,220 —
11 SUNY Maritime College cost & debt at this university → $51,066 $52,107 $58,322 40
12 New York University cost & debt at this university → $48,479 $51,035 $63,892 106

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $44,915 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $41,725 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.

It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median bachelor's major in this dataset reports $36,497, so Business Management sits above the middle by $8,418.

Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".

There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.

Business Management at other levels

Master's — $64,169 (B)

Scholarships for Business Management students

Whatever the subject pays, the money you do not borrow is the money you keep.

INSEAD Business School Scholarships for Mauritians Norwich Business School PhD Studentships at University of East... UKFast MBA Scholarship at Manchester Metropolitan University i... Postgraduate Business Scholarships, Griffith University, Austr... Imperial College London Research Fellowship UK 2017 University of Salford Scholarships for International Students...
See all Business Management scholarships →

Study Business Management Programmes listed on ScholarshipsAds.

Entrepreneurial Enterprise, Business Managemen... — Humber Polytechnic Global Business Management — Humber Polytechnic Sport Business Management — Humber Polytechnic Bachelor of Business Management - Economics — University of Queensland Bachelor of Computer Science and Business Mana... — University of Queensland Bachelor of Business Management - Education (S... — University of Queensland

Majors that pay more at this level Closest first — useful if you are still choosing.

Business Administration — $41,937 Business — $42,154 Marketing — $42,154 Systems Science and Theory — $42,425 Agricultural Business and Management — $42,682 Food Science and Technology — $42,682

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Business Management: the questions people ask

How much do Business Management graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $44,915 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 37 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $43,991.
Is a Business Management degree worth it?
It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label. The median graduate earns $5,395 a year more than a US worker whose highest qualification is a high-school diploma.
What is the salary range for Business Management?
Half of US programmes report medians between $34,704 and $54,192. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Business Management each year?
About 2,895 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 126 US programmes.
Does this include student debt?
No — and deliberately. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not debt, so any "debt by major" figure you see elsewhere is an estimate. Debt is published per institution, which is why our university pages carry it and this page does not.
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Classified by the Department of Education as Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services, Other (CIP 5299). Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.