Personal finance website NerdWallet recently named UCSB the eighth best school for aspiring business majors among 358 recently studied. But UCSB doesn’t have a business major, right?
NerdWallet’s working definition of a “business major” includes fields such as finance, accounting, and business administration, as well as the traditional business major offered at many other schools. For UCSB, that means the case rested on its undergraduate economics program, which draws more students than any other major on campus. The analysts looked at each university’s cost of in-state tuition, average aid package, average student debt, and median salary of graduates ten years out of college.
The study deems UCSB’s $13,671 yearly in-state tuition “relatively affordable” for Californians. This figure is accompanied by an average $15,852 aid package awarded to students and an average $20,452 in student debt after graduation. The payoff, however, comes 10 years down the road, when UCSB alumni with economics degrees have been found to earn a median $102,000 salary, according to the study.