In 2015-2016, 33,527 students graduated with a bachelors degree in economics across the nation. That is a whoppingly large number. Let’s take a look at the future career possibilities of the graduates.
- Going to graduate school to do a Masters.
- Going to graduate school to do a Masters and then a Ph.D.
- Getting a job (entering the job degree) after a bachelors degree.
We are going to approach the analysis by seeing how many of the economics graduates go onto graduate school. There are a few caveats to keep in mind as you look at the charts:
- The data for students who graduate with a Master's in Econ is trails the undergraduate data by (at least) 2 years. This is because students who graduate with a BA in 2016 will get a MA in 2018 if they go directly to graduate school.
- The data for students who graduate with a Ph.D. in Econ is a multi-year trailing data. It take anywhere from 4-6 years to complete a Ph.D.
- The graduation data also counts international students who were admitted in the graduate degree programs. This means that fewer US undergraduate degree holders go to graduate school than the chart suggests.
Nonetheless, the trend is quite interesting. Most of the economics graduates do not go to graduate school. Assuming that economics graduates are not going into graduate school in a different discipline and are not taking a break after graduation, it would appear that a large major of economics graduates are entering the job market. Less than 15% of economics graduate go to graduate school and graduate with a MA in economics. Unsurprisingly only 3% of the graduates with a BA in economics completes a doctoral degree.
An often asked question is about the earning potential of an economics major. The salary depends on the kind of job, the title of the job, geographical location of the job, the experience level of the candidate. However after researching across many sources the median salary for a bachelors in economics seems to be around $50,000/yr.
It is not that easy to tease out the differential numbers between masters and a Ph.D for an economist position. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states a median salary of $101,050 for an economist where the entry position requires a masters. We have collected a few sources that you should check out as you look at the salary for an economics major.
You can get more information about salaries from:
To get a flavor of the kind of jobs you can pursue with an Economics major, take a look at this PDF document from UC-Berkeley
As you contemplate economics as a possible major, you can use our blog as a starting point for your research.