college students listen up business degrees are the most popular undergraduate and graduate major in the us but do they pay off a new report by the georgetown university center on education and the workforce looked at the return on investment roi of 5500 business programs at more than 1700 colleges it found that the value of business programs is high compared with most other programs although not as high as the returns associated with health engineering and computer and information sciences programs looking at students’ earnings relative to their federal student debt the authors found that even though there’s some variation between institutions and degree levels the majority of business programs lead to median earnings that are about 10 times graduates’ debt payments two years after graduation “strong financial returns are good news for the more than 700000 graduates each year who pursue the most popular field of study for bachelor’s and master’s degree holders” said anthony carnevale the lead report author and director of georgetown center on education and the workforce “this information will help prospective students and their families assess the value of various business programs” he added at some schools the roi is high a master’s graduate who attended the university of pennsylvania would make 165600 after debt payments followed by dartmouth college 162000 massachusetts institute of technology 159600 columbia university in the city of new york 157200 stanford university 156000 and the university of chicago 148800 what do business majors do after graduation approximately 12 of business majors aged 22 to 27 become accountants and auditors which gets them to a median earnings of 57000 some become financial and investment analysts and securities commodities and financial service sales agents graduates in those roles earned 71000 a year management analyst roles are also an option for business majors in this role they made 67000 the kind of degree matters two years after graduation an associate’s degree holder in business earned a median annual salary of 30000 after debt payments based on available data two years after graduation however a graduate with a bachelors in business earned 43200 after debt payments a masters holder earned 51600 related the ‘best job in america’ pays up to 125000 a year and has 10000 job openings “earnings and debt at the degree institution or program level tell only one side of the story” said emma wenzinger a coauthor of the report and strategic communications specialist at georgetown’s cew “in a specific business program at a given institution students can earn significantly more or less than the typical earnings for that institution or program” ultimately men still have the upper hand in terms of salaries two years out of college according to the report despite women representing roughly half of the student population they still make less some 47 of bachelor’s degree holders aged 22 to 27 are women and they earned a median of 44600 annually men on the other hand made a median of 50500 a year at the master’s degree level the gap widens 43 of master’s degree holders in business are women and they earned 75600 a year at the median men made 99000 for those with a masters in business asian workers had the highest median annual earnings 100000 followed by white 92000 latino 77700 and black 65000 workers the report added