Business/Managerial Economics at Aquinas College

A debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.45 tells you that comparable Business/Managerial Economics programs produce graduates who can reasonably manage their student loans—the estimated $24,000 debt sits just below the national median for this major, while the estimated $53,000 first-year salary aligns squarely with what similar programs deliver nationally. In Michigan, these figures track closely with what Grand Valley State reports for this same degree, suggesting Aquinas's estimated outcomes fall within the normal range for the state. That's not exceptional, but it's also not worrisome from a pure return-on-investment standpoint.

The challenge is that these are estimates drawn from peer institutions, not actual outcomes for Aquinas graduates. When the DOE suppresses data due to small cohort sizes, you're left evaluating a program based on what similar schools typically produce rather than verified results. For a mid-sized private college with a 71% admission rate, that creates uncertainty—Aquinas could be performing right alongside state peers, or there could be meaningful differences in how employers view its graduates versus those from larger public universities.

If your child is drawn to Aquinas for fit reasons—campus culture, size, specific faculty—this program's estimated numbers don't raise red flags. But given the data limitations, press the school for job placement specifics: where recent graduates landed, what starting salaries they actually received, and whether the college has employer connections in the Grand Rapids business community that might offset its lower profile.