9 Highest Paid Business Degrees: Makes the Most Money
Today, we’re going to be talking about the highest-paid business degrees that make the most money.
Now one thing that I should mention here is some of the ones that are on this list might not be offered at all colleges. Some of them are actually extremely rare. There are only maybe a few hundred or a few thousand people graduating with a degree every single year.
Let’s jump right into it.
The Highest Paid Business Degrees
Here is the list of highest-paid business degrees with mid-career pay details from payscale.com
Highest Paid Business Degree | Mid-Career Pay (per year) |
---|---|
Business Information Technology | $108,000 |
Finance and Marketing | $110,000 |
International Business and Finance | $111,000 |
Accounting and Economics | $117,000 |
Quantitative Economics | $121,000 |
Corporate Accounting and Finance | $123,000 |
Operations and Information Systems Management | $125,000 |
Quantitative Business Analysis | $136,000 |
Public Accounting | $138,000 |
Business Information Technology
One of the highest-paid business degrees is Business information technology.
Business Information Technology is basically going to be a combination of business and then information technology.
So you’re going to be using computer systems in order to help solve businesses problems and make managerial decisions.
Computer System Analyst
There’s a ton of different career paths you can go down but one of them would be a computer systems analyst.
They make around $93,730 per year. And it is growing at 7% which is much faster than average. Meaning over the next 10 years, there’s going to be around 46,600 jobs that open up. Source
Finance and Marketing
Now one of the cool things about both of these degrees is that they are very flexible.
There are tons of different careers that you can go for with both a finance and a marketing degree. And when you put them together there’s even more.
A major in finance is going to help you to interpret the numbers in order to improve a company’s financial health in the future.
On the other hand, Marketing tends to focus on analyzing consumer demands. What does the consumer actually want from us?
They also focus on analyzing marketing trends in general and then launching products that the market actually wants in a successful way. Basically, you are bridging the consumer desire.
Put those two skills together; finance and marketing and it’s a great combination.
Personal Financial Advisor
Again there’s a ton of different job opportunities you could go down. And you could go down with is the personal financial advisor.
They make around $89,330 per year. It’s growing at 4% which is about average. This means over the next 10 years, there are going to be 11,600 jobs that open up.
International Business and Finance
The next one on the list is going to be international business and finance. This one is going to be all about managing money on a global scale.
Business is getting more and more global. For example, Amazon is opening up companies all over the world. This is one of the big reasons why they pay pretty much zero dollars in taxes.
This degree might be really good for you if you’re somebody who wants to potentially live in another country. It is because a lot of the time companies end up sending people to different countries.
Financial Analyst
One career path you could go down would be a financial analyst and they make around $83,660 per year. And it’s growing at 5% which is faster than average. And that means over the next 10 years there’s going to be 26,000 jobs that open up. Source
Final Word
Now international business on its own is a pretty good degree but it does have kind of the problem of being a little bit too general.
But combining that international business degree with a more practical degree like finance is really good.
Accounting and Economics
Now, this is another one where you’re combining a business-related degree that’s very practical like accounting with another degree that’s not quite as practical. But it can still be pretty good which would be economics.
Accounting is all about number crunching and usually, it’s going to be focused on a company a business, or a person. Economics is a little bit more focused on the consumption production and transfer of resources and specifically wealth within a country.
Accountant
One career path you could go down is you could become an accountant. Of course, they make around $73,560 per year. It’s growing at 4% which is as fast as average meaning over the next 10 years there’s going to be 61,000 jobs that open up. Source
Quantitative economics
Quantitative economics does have a lot of the economics in there but it focuses on the numbers. It’s a little bit more practical than just an economics degree on its own.
Management Analyst
One career path you could go down with this degree and again there’s going to be a lot of them would be a management analyst. They make around $87,660 per year. It’s growing at 11% which is very good meaning over the next 10 years there’s gonna be 93,800 jobs that open up. Source
Final Word
So like I said before quantitative economics is going to be economics with a focus on mathematics. But it also has a lot of statistics. And sometimes even some computer programming in there as well.
These hard skills are going to make you much more attractive to a potential employer.
Quantitative economics can be a very good option especially if you’re someone who’s interested in economics. But you also want to make sure that you have those skills that people really want.
Corporate Accounting and Finance
Corporate accounting and finance degree is also considered one of the highest-paid business degrees. This degree is going to be combining your finance skills with accounting skills to prepare you for a career in corporate finance.
A double major in accounting and finance is going to give you a unique skill set and open you up to a lot more job opportunities than if you just had one or the other.
Financial Manager
One career path you could go down here is becoming a financial manager. and they can expect to make around $134,180 per year. It’s growing at 15 which is much faster than average. And that means over the next 10 years 108,100 jobs are gonna open up. Source
Final Word
When it comes to choosing between finance and accounting, there are some things that you should consider.
If you’re at a really good school and the school is highly respected, it’s a good idea to go for a finance degree.
If you’re at just a normal school or community college, it’s probably a better idea to go for accounting.
Operations and Information Systems Management
Operations and Information Systems Management is a unique combination of a few different skill sets.
You’re basically going to have management skills, statistic skills, and information system skills. This is going to be a unique skill set that’s going to help you make really good management skills when it comes to utilizing current technologies.
Operations Research Analyst
One career path you could go down is becoming an operations research analyst.
With this career, you could expect to make around $86,200 per year. It’s growing at a ridiculous 25% meaning over the next 10 years they expect 26,100 jobs to open up. Source
Final Word
The word operations means you’re going to be taking care of the business’s day-to-day tasks. So, you’re not necessarily going to be planning on what the business is going to be doing in the future.
You’re mostly just going to be taking care of the business’s day-to-day logistical tasks. Making sure the business runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis.
Now one huge part of making sure that a business runs smoothly is its technology needs. And the truth is a lot of it people don’t understand the business side of things, the management side of things, and a lot of the business people don’t understand technology.
So if you’re somebody who understands both this is going to be very very valuable.
Quantitative Business Analysis
Another on the list of highest-paid business degrees is Quantitative Business Analysis. It is going to be all about using mathematics in order to solve business problems.
For instance, you might use the numbers and income statements or sales reports, and then you use those numbers in such a way where you can solve problems that the business has.
Logistician
One career path you could go down is you could become a logistician. They make around $76,270 per year. It’s growing at 4% which is average meaning over the next ten years there’s going to be 8,200 jobs that open up.
Final Word
So with this degree, you’re probably not going to be making the business decisions themselves. What you’ll be doing is, you’ll be collecting data and then presenting it to people who will likely be making those decisions.
An example of something that you’d be doing which would be extremely valuable to a business is identifying what’s known as KPI or key performance indicators.
You have to identify what these indicators are. Identify how important they are. How important they are compared to everything else. And then also figure out how you can increase them.
This might not sound that important but it actually makes a huge difference. The difference that this can make is pretty much night and day.
Public Accounting
With public accounting, you would probably be providing auditing services, tax services of course but you’d also be advising and consulting other companies.
In this career, you can expect to make around sixty thousand dollars a year starting off and 138 000 in mid-career pay.
Financial Examiner
One career path you could go down is becoming a financial examiner and they make around $81,430 per year. It’s growing at 7% which is faster than average meaning over the next ten years about five thousand jobs are going to pop up.
Final Word
So when I was researching this the whole public versus private accountant. I found that public accountants make around 15 to 25 more than their private accountant counterparts.
And this tends to be pretty uniform whether we’re talking about being an entry-level accountant, a controller, an auditor, a CFO all of the different career paths that you would likely go down.
So I’m not surprised that this one was actually the highest-paid business degree on the entire list.