Economics is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #15 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 18 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,593 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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It's hard to beat University of Colorado Boulder if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. CU - Boulder is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Boulder.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the economics program state that they receive average early career income of $51,521.
It's difficult to beat Brigham Young University - Provo if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. BYU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Provo.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics degree program at Brigham Young University - Provo earn $10,689 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Colorado College is a good option for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in economics. Colorado College is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of Colorado Springs.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from Colorado College receive $5,439 more than the standard economics graduate.
University of Utah is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in economics. U of U is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Salt Lake City.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Utah make $11,743 more than the typical economics graduate.
Located in the city of Logan, USU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics program at Utah State University get $7,829 more than the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of Denver, CU Anschutz is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus earn $3,558 more than the average economics grad.
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).