If you pursue a master's degree in general business/commerce, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #28 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 7 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Business/Commerce Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 682 master's degrees in general business/commerce during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Business/Commerce School for Your Master's Degree
The general business master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on general business/commerce students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general business/commerce students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for general business/commerce to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized general business/commerce related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general business/commerce students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best General Business/Commerce Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list to help you make the college decision.
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University of Missouri - Columbia is a great choice for students pursuing a master's degree in general business/commerce. Located in the medium-sized city of Columbia, Mizzou is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those general business/commerce students who get their master's degree from University of Missouri - Columbia receive $8,236 more than the standard general business grad.
University of Missouri - St Louis is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in general business/commerce. Located in the suburb of Saint Louis, UMSL is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the general business/commerce degree program at University of Missouri - St Louis make $8,782 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It's hard to beat Lindenwood University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in general business/commerce. Located in the city of Saint Charles, Lindenwood University is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the general business program make an average of $70,744 in their early career salary.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in general business/commerce needs to look into Columbia College. Located in the city of Columbia, Columbia College Missouri is a private not-for-profit college with a medium-sized student population.
Soon after graduation, general business master's recipients typically earn about $71,024 at the beginning of their careers.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The general business master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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