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.
College Factual looked at 87 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 7,994 bachelor's degrees in economics during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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.
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 the Middle Atlantic Region list to help you make the college 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.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Economics in the Middle Atlantic Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in economics. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
17 Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Economics
It is hard to beat University of Pennsylvania if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics degree program at University of Pennsylvania earn $33,292 above the typical graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat Columbia University in the City of New York if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in economics. Located in the city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics degree program at Columbia University in the City of New York make $27,330 above the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in economics has to check out Cornell University. Cornell is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Ithaca.
Economics bachelor's degree recipients from Cornell University get an earnings boost of around $29,162 above the typical earnings of economics graduates.
Johns Hopkins University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in economics. Johns Hopkins is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Baltimore.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University receive $22,376 more than the typical economics student.
Located in the city of Washington, Georgetown is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics program at Georgetown University earn $28,655 above the standard graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Princeton is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Princeton.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics degree program at Princeton University get $47,236 more than the typical college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
UMCP is a very large public university located in the suburb of College Park.
Those economics students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Maryland - College Park receive $2,845 more than the typical economics graduate.
The American University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Bachelor's recipients from the economics major at American University earn $2,346 more than the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Rest of the Top Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region
Additional Noteworthy Schools
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Economics Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region 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).
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:
