Where can your student actually get into economics?

• 772 colleges nationwide offer a bachelor's economics program: 765 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 7 more carry program earnings in federal outcome data but no 2022-23 degree count under these program codes.
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: University of California-Irvine (959), University of California-Los Angeles (772), University of California-Berkeley (753).
• 55 of them are in California, the one state whose public systems (the University of California and the CSU) publish an admit rate into the major.
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): University of California-Berkeley — Economics, Fall 2025: 5,345 applied, 264 admitted (5%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-Fresno — 95.9% (97 applied, 93 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: Williams College, $166,678.
• Lowest average net price with aid: CUNY Hunter College, $2,984 per year.

A college here with no first-year admit row is not easier or harder than the rest; it means only that its system does not publish admissions by major, so a private college like Claremont McKenna appears through federal outcome data alone. Where a campus does report a rate, at a UC it is the campus decision for students who named economics, and at a CSU it is that campus's own reported decision for applicants to the major. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · California only (55 colleges, with the UC and CSU gates) →

Every college, one row each

Colleges with a reported gate into the program come first, hardest first; the rest are sorted by earnings, then by graduates. Degree awarded is the program the college conferred bachelor's degrees in during 2022-23, with the number of graduates (federal IPEDS completions). Program admit rate is the college system's own number for this major (UC Information Center, CSU Chancellor's Office). Net price is the average paid by aid recipients; full price is the cost of attendance. Earnings are federal College Scorecard medians four years after the degree.