A Rasmussen survey of 2,000 people who graduated from business-related university programs found only 10% were experiencing buyer’s remorse about the cost and effort of getting a business degree.
Another 70% said they would recommend pursuing a business degree to others.
The Rasmussen study, conducted in late 2013, asked participants six questions related to obtaining a business degree. All of them were designed to find out what areas of business were deemed to be the most exciting or potentially lucrative for students, as well as the graduate’s feelings about the worth of a business degree.
The survey asked the 2,000 graduates to rank the worth of earning a business degree, based on a scale of 1 (the degree was worthless) to 5 (the degree was worth it). Rasmussen reported that 63.4% of those surveyed rated their degree as “4” or higher.
Only 10% of the respondents rated their degree as a “1.”
The survey also asked if those who had earned a degree would recommend that others seek a degree. The response: 70% recommended getting a degree, and it took them only an average of 3 seconds to respond.
Respondents were also asked: “Is a business degree boring?” That seems to be one of the fears of those going to school to study business. As the Rasmussen report indicated, a lot of those fears can be alleviated by picking a business specialty that you actually find interesting.
The survey asked respondents to rank business courses from the most exciting to the least. About 21% said management is the most exciting, followed by marketing (20.2%), entrepreneurship (19.8%), finance (19.5%), accounting (13.3%) and, at the low end of the scale, human resources (5.9%).
Rasmussen, in a partnership with Burning Glass, a web-based job analysis tool, found that three of the top six occupations with the best job opportunities are in business – sales, management and business and financial operations.
The report also showed the expected job growth for various business-related occupations, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Every occupation was at or above the 14% average growth expected for all occupations, with cost estimator (36%), logistician (26%) and financial analyst (23%) the three highest.
Asked for their favorite course subjects – a good indicator for those thinking of going to business school – respondents listed accounting, math, marketing, economics and finance. If your interest are similar, you might do well in pursuing a business-related degree.
In “a final thought” on the survey, Rasmussen noted that while the results can be helpful for those contemplating a business degree, there really is only one right answer to the question of whether a business degree is a good idea: “the one that makes sense to you.”
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