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There are a wide vari­ety of eco­nom­ics schools for under­grad­u­ates to choose from, so the best eco­nom­ics school will depend on the par­tic­u­lar needs and expec­ta­tions of the indi­vid­ual stu­dent. Pri­vate col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties gen­er­al­ly have small­er stu­dent-to-pro­fes­sor ratios and offer pres­ti­gious degrees that will demand the atten­tion of poten­tial employ­ers, though their degrees usu­al­ly come at a steep finan­cial cost. Pub­lic col­leges and state uni­ver­si­ties often have more stu­dents in each class, but allow their stu­dents to get a great deal on their edu­ca­tion. There are many dif­fer­ent sta­tis­tics that are avail­able to gauge the edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­ty of col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, but our method­ol­o­gy placed an empha­sis on the return of invest­ment, to ensure that eco­nom­ics grad­u­ates are find­ing great career options in the job mar­ket. For ref­er­ence to the best eco­nom­ics schools for bach­e­lor degree seek­ers, check out our list of the Top 15 Bachelor’s Degrees in Eco­nom­ics. Let’s take a clos­er look at a cou­ple of the best eco­nom­ics schools in the Unit­ed States.

University of Pennsylvania

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia (also known as UPenn) is a pri­vate, Ivy league research uni­ver­si­ty that was found­ed by Ben­jamin Franklin in 1740, and is locat­ed in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­va­nia. The university’s Whar­ton School of Busi­ness con­sis­tent­ly ranks as one of the top busi­ness schools in the coun­try. Whar­ton offers a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (BS) degree in eco­nom­ics, which focus­es on applied eco­nom­ics. The Whar­ton BS degree is high­ly cus­tomiz­able, as Whar­ton offers over 25 dif­fer­ent spe­cial­iza­tions for Eco­nom­ics majors that pro­vide in-depth analy­sis of real-world busi­ness areas, includ­ing Man­ag­ing Elec­tron­ic Com­merce, Glob­al Analy­sis, and Retail­ing. Stu­dents also have the option of cus­tomiz­ing their BS degree with an indi­vid­u­al­ized con­cen­tra­tion that allows them to choose the class­es that best meets their edu­ca­tion­al expec­ta­tions. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania’s Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences offers a Bach­e­lor of Arts (BA) in Eco­nom­ics, which focus­es on the­o­ret­i­cal eco­nom­ics. Core require­ments for the Bach­e­lor of Arts degree include Macro and Micro­eco­nom­ics cours­es, as well as Cal­cu­lus, and Econo­met­rics. Stu­dents who have a min­i­mum GPA of 3.5 can apply for the Hon­ors Sem­i­nar. Tuition at UPenn came out to $53,534 for the 2017–18 school year, though the school ranked num­ber one on our list because of its return on invest­ment, as grad­u­ates are expect­ed to land some of the best careers avail­able for eco­nom­ics majors. For more infor­ma­tion on how the high price of col­lege can be a worth­while invest­ment, check out our info­graph­ic that goes into depth about The Eco­nom­ics of a Bachelor’s Degree.

The University of Virginia

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia (also known as UVA) is a pub­lic research uni­ver­si­ty that was found­ed in 1819 by Thomas Jef­fer­son and is locat­ed in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia. The university’s Col­lege and Grad­u­ate School of Arts and Sci­ences offers a bachelor’s degree in eco­nom­ics that allows stu­dents to choose from con­cen­tra­tions in Finan­cial Eco­nom­ics, Indus­tri­al Orga­ni­za­tion, Inter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ics or Pub­lic Pol­i­cy. Stu­dents who are inter­est­ed in anoth­er aca­d­e­m­ic area also have the option of minor­ing in Eco­nom­ics. Tuition for the 2017–18 school year came out to $16,853 for in-state stu­dents, and $47,273 for out-of-state stu­dents, though 56% of stu­dents received some form of finan­cial aid.

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