If you pursue a bachelor's degree in economics, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #15 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 22 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for economics students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,940 bachelor's degrees in economics to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Economics (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Economics (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Economics (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Economics (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Applied Economics" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MS in Applied Economics" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 3
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 2 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 2
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 2 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Economics School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The economics bachelor'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
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on economics students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of economics students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for economics to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized economics related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for economics students working on their bachelor's degree.
The economics school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "social-sciences//economics"
Rice University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in economics. Rice is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Houston.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from Rice University make $26,351 more than the standard economics grad.
Texas A&M University - College Station is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the medium-sized city of College Station, Texas A&M College Station is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the economics program make about $49,738 in their early career salary.
It is hard to beat Southern Methodist University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the suburb of Dallas, SMU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from Southern Methodist University earn $19,167 more than the average economics graduate.
It is hard to beat The University of Texas at Austin if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the large city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Economics bachelor's degree recipients from The University of Texas at Austin earn a boost of approximately $6,254 over the typical earnings of economics graduates.
ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the city of Tempe.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics program at Arizona State University - Tempe earn $2,315 above the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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 economics bachelor'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:
