If you pursue a doctor's degree in economics, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #24 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 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 38 doctor's degrees in economics to qualified students.
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Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to economics students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other economics students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
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 much debt economics students go into to obtain their doctor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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 schools for economics students working on their doctor'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 Doctor's Degree Schools in Virginia.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in economics has to look into George Mason University. Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the economics program state that they receive average early career earnings of $87,415.
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
