Our world is shaped in a fundamental way by economic forces. High unemployment, financial uncertainty, and growing public debt present great challenges for all of us. Concerns about energy sources, and about the environmental impact of economic activity will also be with us for decades to come. Studying economics will allow you to understand these challenges more deeply and will give you tools to help solve these problems. The Economics major is an excellent preparation for a wide range of jobs and graduate and professional studies.

As an Economics major at Utah, you will be able to choose the elective courses that will best prepare you for your preferred career. Beyond the core sequence in micro- and macroeconomics and quantitative and statistical methods, students can choose elective courses focused on money and banking, environmental economics, economic development in poor countries, labor economics, health economics, econometrics, and many other topics. Our curriculum offers students an exposure to an unusual breadth of economic thought, as is reflected in elective offerings that examine feminist, Marxian, historical, and institutional approaches. Our course schedule is flexible, allowing our students to combine their Economics major with a minor or second major in fields like business, political science, math, and many others.

Overall, Economics majors earn higher starting salaries than students who major in any other social science field. At the University of Utah, most of our graduates move directly into the labor market, entering fields like investment banking, financial services, health care administration, and market research, as well as public-sector and non profit work. About one-third of our recent majors have gone directly into graduate or professional school, with many of them entering prestigious programs in law, public policy, and business administration.