The best business liberal arts colleges are those with rich histories of influence, proven through the work produced by the program’s faculty and alumni. Beyond demonstrating scholarly impact in the field, the best business degree programs maximize your opportunities to interact with outstanding business faculty.
More and more American college students are considering and shifting to a business major, such as international business, business administration, business management, and many more.
The main reason more students are taking undergraduate education in business is the opportunity to land entry-level positions in the business world immediately after graduation. However, today’s businesses are rapidly evolving, and employers are looking for business graduates with comprehensive and diverse educational backgrounds.
In the past, it was difficult for students interested in earning a business administration degree to find an undergraduate business program with a diverse mix of classes.
Today, liberal arts colleges are stepping up and offering potential business majors a degree that combines the best of a liberal arts education with a business focus.
This flexible combination helps business graduates land jobs because they are able to adapt and make valuable contributions in multiple areas of business because of the well-rounded education they have received.
A bachelor’s degree in business administration is an excellent starting point for a career in business management, finance, or entrepreneurship. As a business major, you’ll learn basic business theory as well as practical concepts related to sales, marketing, accounting and more. You’ll also have a chance to focus on specific aspects of business, including human resources, hospitality, real estate, entertainment and much more.
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the business degree is an extremely popular degree because of its versatility. As a business major, you’ll pursue your own concentration—whether your interest is in sales, promotions, international business, or any of the countless other options at your fingertips.
The best schools for business administration are those which are regionally accredited, offer a full array of business administration concentrations, give you the chance to work with the best and most influential professors and classmates.
Entry exams to liberal arts universities are taken very seriously. Make sure to get ready for the exams that the universities of your choosing accept by checking which exams they accept. You should study and retake the SAT or ACT if your first attempt doesn’t result in a score in the top 50%. Only submit your top grades.
A public school and state university won’t seem to care as much about your global citizenship as liberal arts universities do, so you need to establish your versatility.
These liberal arts colleges are frequently small universities with close-knit communities, and they take great satisfaction in turning out graduates seeking to make a positive difference in the world. You must project the image of an ambitious person who enjoys contributing and works.
If you are a returning student, now is the time to implement the plan you made before going back to school.
Students come back for a variety of reasons. Maybe you wish to finish something you started, be a good role model for your kids, or get the training you need to advance in your company. Whatever your motivation, it must remain central to your thoughts during your time in school.
Since you’re in a liberal arts college, take a variety of courses that will develop your soft skills in addition to your technical skills. You can even enroll in dual degree programs. You must have transferable skills to have more competency in the job market.
To succeed you will need to remain on top of your projects and submit them on time, so the days of trying to recall everything from memory are long gone. You can pick a planner that works for your schedule or use free organizational tools. Note all impending tests, homework assignments, and other due dates.
Colleges of liberal arts seek a giving, selfless mentality. As a result, you should volunteer as much as possible during your junior and senior high school years. Look for volunteer opportunities with groups like the Humane Society, a Big Brother/Big Sister program, or a local tutoring service for less underserved young students.
The relationships you form with peers, professors, and business leaders will be one of the most valuable aspects of your degree. You will benefit from doing this now because you will have classmates with whom you may study, share notes, and seek assistance. However, your network will be most valuable when you graduate.
As you look for new chances, develop, and form your own teams, you will have peers who have evolve into colleagues and other people who will support you in your career.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in Business administration can open numerous professionals doors. In fact, you can do practically anything with this degree. If you have an interest in project management, marketing, or small business administration, you’ll love majoring in business. Majoring in business is also a great option for students who are interested in learning about retail management, corporate citizenship, entrepreneurship, hospitality, real estate, and much more. In addition to opening numerous career pathways, majoring in business can help prepare you for pursuit of an advanced degree. Many business majors will go on to pursue a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.
Today, top business influencers are driving innovation through their research on lean startup methods, social marketing, global entrepreneurship, and more.
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, business administration is the single most popular major because of its versatility, as well as the potential for excellent pay. Many of the skills you’ll develop as a business major will be applicable in other areas of life and career. Business majors typically incorporate the kinds of 21st Century skills like collaboration, communication, creative thinking and technological literacy. Even if you don’t plan to start your own business or lead a company, these skills will be valuable as you pursue your professional goals.
The business major also offers students among the best returns on investment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, This median annual wage for business and financial occupations was $69,820 in May 2019, which was significantly higher than the median annual wage for all occupations of $39,810.
Once you’ve declared your major in business administration, you will likely be required to complete a set of core courses in a number of business-related subject areas. While your concentration will give you a chance to choose from a wide range of highly-specialized business administration electives, there are a number of common courses that most business administration majors will be required to take, including:
The short answer to this question is, whatever you want. Whether you want to run a four-star hotel, start your own boutique shop on Main St., or crunch numbers for a Fortune 500 company, majoring in business is a good starting point. Your business major can lead to a wide range of career opportunities, including these top jobs:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. Research universities offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Learn more about research universities by reading about the best research universities in the US.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Learn more about liberal arts colleges by reading about the best liberal arts colleges in the US.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you’re interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
If you think a research university may be a better fit for you, see our ranking of the best research universities for a bachelor’s in business.
Methodology
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Influence”.
The influence of a college or university is based on the schools’s top academic influencers related to the discipline in this ranking. We track the influence of faculty and alumni affiliate with these school counting not only the publications and citations of the school’s affiliated people, but we also consider the overall web presence of the faculty and alumni. The greater the citations, authority of web links, web searches, and page views, the greater the individuals’s influence. Those combined make up the departments’s influence in the field of study. We believe tracking the academic influence of the people affiliated with a school is the best indicator of academic excellence.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and misused performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is more insulated from manipulation, and more reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
13%
Graduation
92%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
Claremont McKenna College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
85%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/27
United States Military Academy’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
55%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1045/20
San Francisco State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
42%
Graduation
73%
Student body
33K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/23
California State University, Long Beach’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
88%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
University of Richmond’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$47K
Acceptance
34%
Graduation
79%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1370/30
Trinity University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
28%
Graduation
80%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1305/29
Denison University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
83%
Student body
1K
Pitzer College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$62K
Acceptance
41%
Graduation
86%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1320/29
Union College, New York’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$47K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
70%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
Manhattan College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
90%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1320/29
Bentley University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
76%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
Bradley University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
35%
Graduation
88%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1411/31
Scripps College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
62%
Student body
8K
Monroe College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
66%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
San Jose State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
67%
Student body
2K
Ohio Wesleyan University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Related Minors
Source
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
81%
Student body
3K
Rollins College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
88%
Graduation
75%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1180/25
John Carroll University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
53%
Student body
4K
Fairleigh Dickinson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
84%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/26
University of Portland’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
81%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/26
Saint Joseph’s University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$42K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
60%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/23
Suffolk University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
68%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/24
Albion College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
77%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/23
Niagara University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
69%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1175/25
High Point University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Source
Go to all Liberal Arts Colleges for Business programs
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