If you pursue a master's degree in general business/commerce, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #28 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.
College Factual reviewed 96 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of general business/commerce. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 8,488 master's degrees in general business/commerce during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great General Business/Commerce School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of general business/commerce for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality general business program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 for a Master's Degree 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 master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master'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 many resources a school devotes to general business/commerce students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general business/commerce students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 much debt general business/commerce students go into to obtain their master'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 general business/commerce related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general business/commerce students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank General Business/Commerce Schools
The general business 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 General Business/Commerce Master's Degree Schools.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study General Business/Commerce in the United States
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in general business/commerce. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Northwestern University is a good option for individuals pursuing a master's degree in general business/commerce. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.
Those general business/commerce students who get their master's degree from Northwestern University receive $87,868 more than the typical general business student.
It is difficult to beat Johns Hopkins University if you want to pursue a master's degree in general business/commerce. Johns Hopkins is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Baltimore.
Those general business/commerce students who get their master's degree from Johns Hopkins University receive $35,344 more than the typical general business student.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in general business/commerce has to check out Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Located in the city of Cambridge, MIT is a private not-for-profit school with a fairly large student population.
Those general business/commerce students who get their master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology receive $95,479 more than the typical general business graduate.
IU Bloomington is a very large public university located in the city of Bloomington.
General Business/Commerce master's degree recipients from Indiana University - Bloomington receive an earnings boost of around $36,985 above the typical earnings of general business/commerce graduates.
Located in the city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the general business/commerce major at University of Wisconsin - Madison make $37,780 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large city of Philadelphia, Drexel is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the general business/commerce program at Drexel University earn $21,130 above the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Northeastern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Boston.
General Business/Commerce master's degree recipients from Northeastern University get an earnings boost of about $30,455 over the average earnings of general business/commerce majors.
Located in the large city of Denver, DU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Those general business/commerce students who get their master's degree from University of Denver make $12,893 more than the average general business grad.
Here are some additional great schools for General Business/Commerce students that almost earned our Best General Business/Commerce Master's Degree Schools award.
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).