Ranked #15 in popularity, economics is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in District of Columbia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 399 bachelor's degrees in economics during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for economics students working on their bachelor'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 Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in District of Columbia list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Georgetown University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the large city of Washington, Georgetown is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Economics bachelor's degree recipients from Georgetown University receive an earnings boost of about $14,362 over the typical income of economics majors.
George Washington University is a great option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in economics. GWU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the economics program make around $67,684 for their early career.
It's hard to beat American University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. The American University is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Washington.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the economics program report average early career income of $58,151.
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
